The Mystery of the Missing Heiress (21 page)

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Authors: Julie Campbell

BOOK: The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

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“How could we have been so simpleminded?” Jim said disgustedly. “My phony cousin is off with all that money that belongs to Janie... nobody knows where... while we’ve been sitting here like a bunch of dumb clucks, letting her get a head start.”

“I don’t think so,” Trixie said quietly. “Do you remember the stop I made at the sheriff’s office before we went to the bus?”

“You were
that
sure, Trix?” Jim said. “I guess you weren’t one of us dumb clucks.”

Trixie grinned. “Go on, Janie. Hans will want to know everything. Oh, Janie, it’s so wonderful to know finally that you can remember!”

With words tumbling over one another, Janie told of the hospital, the Candy Stripers, Dr. Gregory, the nurses, the Bob-Whites, their club and their station wagon, Mrs. Belden, and her stay at Crabapple Farm.

At this point, Trixie and Honey took over, with help from the other Bob-Whites. They told of the man at the marsh, the letter from Mrs. Schimmel, the trip to the Bronx, the mysterious damage to their car, and the appearance at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s home of the phony Juliana.

“What happened to my darling little blue Volkswagen?” Janie interrupted.

“I guess the police will have to figure that one out,” Jim answered. “All we want is a chance at that stepfather of mine!”

“You said it!” Brian agreed. “When I think of the next trick he pulled, when Janie fell over that cliff!” Hans gasped, and an answering groan went up from the Bob-Whites.

After they had told Hans this part of the story, he asked, “Didn’t anyone suspect your stepfather, Jim?”

“How could we at that point?” Trixie broke in. “He hadn’t been seen around here for two years— not since he tried to get Jim’s inheritance away from him. For a detective, I was a prize dumb bunny. In all the cases Honey and I have worked on, there never have been so many mixed-up happenings and clues that we missed.”

“You were not aware that ‘Janie’ was really my Juliana, Trixie, so how could you solve so many mysteries? Oh, Juliana, to think of all these things threatening you, with me halfway across the world.”

“You are here now,” Janie said, smiling up at him. “Think of the good friends I’ve had, not even knowing who I was. I think the Bob-Whites and their parents and all their relatives and friends are the kindest, best people in the whole world.”

“We’re so kind that we almost let you get murdered last night,” Trixie said. “I don’t know why my mind didn’t click when I heard Mrs. Vanderpoel say that Juliana had been with the Thompson family.”

“Yeah,” Mart said. “You sure had reason to remember Snipe Thompson. That name should have set off an alarm.”

“How many bells have been ringing in
your
head?” Brian asked Mart. “Trixie and Honey didn’t know Jones was even in these parts, till they saw him when the lightning flashed last night. They were up and on the watch. You and I were snoring in our beds.”

“I’m getting confused,” Hans admitted, smiling for the first time since he had heard of Janie’s accident. “Can someone ‘cue me in.’ ”

In chronological order, then, the Bob-Whites told the whole sordid story as far as they knew it.

As they neared the end, the telephone rang.

Trixie answered. It was the sheriff. She talked for a minute, then turned to the listeners.

“He says he has a couple of interesting customers in jail—Jones and his niece. Spider Webster helped bring them in. He saw the green Buick parked in White Plains. The sheriff is getting a tape recording of their story. The girl was sullen and clammed up, hasn’t said a word. Jones was mouthy, as usual. The sheriff wants to know if we’d like to listen in on a playback of the tape about an hour from now, when he’s hustled them off to maximum security. People in Sleepyside are pretty well worked up. Spider and Sergeant Molinson’s men have jailed Snipe Thompson, his wife, and his nephew for questioning. Shall I say we’ll be down there in about an hour?”

“Right!” the Bob-Whites agreed.

“Moms, I’m hungry!” Bobby cried and wondered why everyone laughed.

“Come to think of it, fella, so am I,” Brian told his little brother. “Moms?”

“I know.” Mrs. Belden hurried to the kitchen. “Hamburgers for everyone. Hans must be very hungry.”

Hans, deep in low conversation with Janie, didn’t answer.

Sometime later, in the sheriff’s office, the Bob-Whites, with Janie and Hans, watched the deputy slip in the tape and adjust the recorder, heard the sheriffs questions, and listened to Jim’s stepfather's answers.

They heard him tell of seeing the story in the New York newspaper and remembering that his wife’s sister had been named Betje Maasden.
If
this were true, he had thought, he might be in for some big money out of the deal.

Disguising his voice, he had tried to make a call to Jim to verify the name. Failing to reach Jim, he’d hung around the marsh, trying to pump some information out of the workers there. They had run him out. Then he went to the courthouse and tried to put in a claim, but they told him they wouldn’t make a move till they had more information.

So he watched the Sleepyside newspaper for more news and learned of Mrs. Schimmel’s letter from Holland
and
of the little Juliana’s survival after her mother and father had been drowned. He learned, too, that the girl, now grown up, was in the Bronx at the De Jong home, and that if she made a claim for the land, she would inherit it.

Fortunately, his niece—

“This is where the phony Juliana comes in,” Trixie whispered to Jim.

“Shhh!” he answered. “Listen to the tape.”

“... impersonate her,” the tape continued. Jim’s stepfather’s voice droned on sullenly, while he explained how he planned to kidnap the girl and substitute his niece for her.

He’d gone to the Bronx ahead of the Bob-Whites, and, though Juliana had left there, he hid in the shrubbery, learned that she had been driving a blue Volkswagen, and heard Honey tell the neighbor of the route the Bob-Whites would follow going back to Sleepyside. It was okay with him when they went into the neighbor’s house for Cokes and cookies, because it gave him a chance to vandalize the station wagon and get a head start on the trail of Juliana.

He had only intended to waylay her, kidnap her, and hold her captive at Mrs. Thompson s house, then substitute his niece until the deal was concluded and the money paid.

However, Juliana s car had hit a tree. When she was knocked out, he had thought she was dead.

So he took her car and all her identification and hid out at Snipe Thompson’s, and his niece took over. She was a pretty good actress, wasn’t she?

“No, she wasn’t,” Trixie said out loud. “I should have known she couldn’t possibly be Jim’s cousin and be so mean. I’ll bet she never made but one doll... just to throw us off.”

“Shhhh!”

When he learned the girl wasn’t dead, but only unconscious, and that she had lost her memory, he still went ahead with his plan, hoping time would be on his side and the money his before she recovered her memory.

“You even tried murder twice,” the sheriff’s voice cut in, contemptuously.

“If it had to be. Time was getting short,” Jones answered. “A hundred and a half grand ain’t picked up on just any old street. I’d have gotten away with it, too, if that outfit that call themselves the ‘Bob-Whites’—and mostly that girl Trixie Belden—hadn’t been in my hair.

“Snipe and I had a good trap laid up there on that cliff. He got rid of the signs....”

“And another attempt at murder last night, with your drug that almost killed the Belden dog. That was meant for the real heiress to the money, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but that nosy kid, that amateur dick—”

“She saved my life!” Janie cried and ran to put her arms around Trixie. “She and Honey—oh, and all the rest of them there on the cliff. It has been so terrible, so horrible....” Janie’s lovely eyes were clouded. Then they grew bright as stars. “But think of the friends I’ve made!”

“They are the best in the world,” Hans said devoutly and added, laughing, “I know they can’t all possibly come to Holland for our wedding, Juliana. Maybe I can make arrangements through the Dutch consulate so that we can be married here in

Sleepyside, then spend our honeymoon in those mountains where you were going... the Poconos?”

“Oh,
please
have your wedding at Crabapple Farm!” Trixie shouted.

“How about having it at Manor House?” Jim asked. “Janie is my cousin, you know.”

“That’s right, at Manor House,” Trixie agreed. Janie clapped her hands, color flooding her lovely face. “Perfect! Trixie must be my maid of honor, and Honey and Diana must be my bridesmaids. We must invite Spider Webster and his brother and dear Mrs. Vanderpoel—”

“I don’t know who they are,” Hans said, laughing. “I’ll learn. If they are friends of yours, Juliana, they will be friends of mine, too. Jim must be my best man, and Brian, Mart, and Dan ushers,” Hans added. “Bobby must carry the ring.”

Trixie’s eyes shone. Who would have dreamed it would all turn out like this, after all the horrible things they had endured? Janie looked so pretty, and as for her handsome fiancé, Hans....

“We’ll be so busy,” she said excitedly. “We’ll have such loads of things to do to get ready! Janie?”

“Yes, Trixie?”

“I’ve never in my whole life ever been anyone’s maid of honor! I’ve never even been a bridesmaid,” she added. “Jeepers, imagine! Me!”