A Meeting at Porcupine Pond • 17
TRIXIE SQUINTED as the car headlights flashed in her eyes. After the car had turned around at the end of the road, the lights dimmed and the motor fell silent. Trixie strained her eyes to see the car and felt a sharp twinge of disappointment.
“It’s Pat and Katie’s pickup!” she gasped.
Two figures jumped out of the vehicle and headed down the path to the pond. Both were wearing jeans and parkas, with ski masks that covered the entire face.
“I was hoping it wouldn’t be Pat and Katie,” Honey whispered.
“Me, too,” Trixie sighed.
“Well, we’ve got a job to do now,” Jim muttered.
As the two figures walked out onto the ice, a third figure emerged from the woods on the opposite shore. Trixie could see Carl’s long white hair gleaming in the moonlight and the silhouette of a pack on his back.
Jim crept to the O’Briens’ truck and carefully pulled up the hood. “Trixie,” he whispered, “I need your help.”
She hurried over, and he pointed to the back of the engine. “Shine your flashlight right here.” He leaned way over the engine to the distributor and pulled out a wire.
“What’s that?” Trixie asked.
“The coil wire. This is a little trick Tom Delanoy taught me. Here, put this in your pocket and don’t lose it. That pickup can’t go anywhere without it.” Then, as quietly as he had opened it, Jim closed the hood.
Trixie walked over to the driver’s side of the truck and swept her flashlight across the ground. In the arc of her beam was a line of footprints—waffle-stomper boot prints. She bent down to examine them. “Jim,” she said tensely, “these are five-pointed stars. These prints match the ones we saw next to the tree!”
Jim sighed. “I guess that makes Pat our ghost. Even though so many clues pointed to him, I just wasn’t ready for this. Boy, did I have them pegged wrong. I thought they were really great people.”
“So did I,” Trixie said softly.
“Come here, you two,” Honey hissed. She motioned to them to join her on the edge of the knoll.
The fresh snow reflected the bright moonlight, so they had a clear view of all that went on, even though the people on the ice were too far away for them to hear anything.
“Where’s Ellen?” asked Jim. “I thought you said they were supposed to bring Ellen.”
“Jeepers, I wonder why they didn’t,” fretted Trixie. “You—you don’t suppose they hurt her, do you?” asked Honey.
“Don’t even think that,” Trixie scolded, although she was already considering worse possibilities.
The three figures on the ice were pointing and waving at each other, and they were obviously angry. Eventually things calmed down, and they seemed to talk for quite a while. Trixie wished she had had the foresight to hide closer to the pond so she could have heard what was going on.
“Look,” Jim whispered. “They look like they’ve come to an agreement of some kind. Do you suppose they could have been in this together all along?”
“No,” said Trixie with a vehement shake of her head. “Otherwise Carl would never have told us about this meeting. But I sure don’t understand what’s going on now.”
Carl was turning to leave, the pack still on his back. Pat and Katie followed him toward the edge of the pond.
“Where are they going?” worried Trixie. “We can’t lose track of them now!”
Suddenly Pat raised his hand high into the air and brought it down on the back of Carl’s head. Carl slumped to the ice.
“Why did he do that?” Honey gasped, tears in her eyes.
Trixie could tell that Jim was gritting his teeth. She knew what he was thinking. Her temper was about to flare up, too.
Pat bent over and propped Carl up, while Katie got Carl’s backpack off. She slung it over her shoulder and headed back toward the car in front of Pat, the two of them leaving Carl lying alone on the ice.
They had taken only a few steps, when, to the Bob-Whites’ horror, Pat took out his gun and brought it down on Katie’s head. As she fell to the ice, Pat grabbed for the pack.
Trixie had to cup her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming.
“I just don’t believe this is happening,” Jim whispered fiercely.
In a matter of seconds, Pat had taken a length of rope from his pocket and tied Katie’s hands behind her back. Then, swinging the pack onto his shoulders, he started running toward the pickup.
Jim, Trixie, and Honey quickly scrambled for cover. As she heard the crunch of Pat’s boots coming up the hill, Trixie clenched her fists. Capturing a man who would be so brutal to his wife and an old man was more than I bargained for tonight, she thought.
Pat was panting heavily by the time he reached the truck. He pulled the door open and threw in the pack, shoving it over to the passenger side as he climbed in. The Bob-Whites heard a whirring noise, then some muttered curses.
Trixie and Jim managed to smile faintly at each other.
The motor whirred again. After about ten seconds, the door opened. Trixie could see Pat slowly getting out of the pickup, a gun in one hand and the flashlight in the other. Aiming his flashlight at the woods, he made a full circle around the pickup before stopping. Then he put his gun in his pocket, tucked the flashlight between his knees, and started to open the hood.
“Now!” whispered Jim. He leaped out of the woods at full speed and made a flying tackle.
“What should we do?” Honey wailed as she and Trixie came out of the bushes.
“Nothing,” Trixie answered. “Jim can handle him.”
But as they drew closer, Trixie could see that Pat was fighting rough. Pat rolled on top of Jim, and his hand reached out for something that had fallen out of his pocket—the gun! Acting in a split second, Trixie kicked the gun just as Pat’s fingers touched it. Then she snatched it up and threw it as far as she could into the woods.
When she turned back, she saw Jim surprising Pat with an uppercut to the chin. Pat, thrown off balance, fell backward and hit the ground. As if controlled by one mind, Trixie and Honey rushed to throw all their weight onto Pat’s shoulders, pinning him to the ground.
“What teamwork,” Jim called breathlessly as he ran to the bushes. He brought back the ropes from their survival kits. “Somehow I thought I might be needing this,” he said as he tied Pat’s feet together. “Hold him up so I can tie his hands behind his back,” Jim instructed the two girls, who were still holding Pat.
Once Pat was securely tied up, Jim said, “I’d better go down and check on Carl and Katie.”
“Jim, you stay here and rest. I’ll go check on them,” Honey volunteered. She disappeared down the hill.
Jim sank to the ground, exhausted, and Trixie turned to Pat, who was propped up against the truck wheel.
“You put on a pretty good act, Pat,” Trixie said sorrowfully, reaching for his grotesque ski mask. “We all thought you were really nice.” She yanked the mask off.
Then she gasped. “Wh-Why, you’re not Pat O’Brien at all!”
Where is Ellen? ● 18
BERT MITCHELL just growled at them.
Jim’s jaw dropped open. “What were you doing in Pat and Katie’s truck?” he demanded.
“I’m not saying a thing to anyone,” Bert snapped. “I have my rights.”
“How come you didn’t bring Ellen Johnson?” Trixie persisted. “I thought that was part of the deal.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
When Trixie turned to share a look of amazement with Jim, she noticed for the first time that he’d been hurt. By the light of her flashlight, she could see the blood trickling down Jim’s face from a cut on his forehead, along with a badly bruised eye and puffiness around his face. Without flinching a bit, she got some bandages from her survival kit and started taking care of the cut just as she imagined Brian would.
“I didn’t even feel that cut. But, boy, is my hand sore,” Jim said, flexing his hand.<
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They heard some rustling in the bushes, and Honey appeared, followed by Carl and Jack.
Trixie turned to Bert. “It sure was nice of you to tie up Jack for us,” she said sweetly.
Bert growled at her again.
“Can you believe it?” Honey panted as she came closer. “It wasn’t Pat and Katie after all!”
“You dirty double-crosser!” yelled Jack.
“Shut up,” snarled Bert. “Both of us are in this together.”
“We must find Ellen,” Carl said groggily. “They said she’s okay, but they refuse to tell me where she is.”
“First we have to get everyone back to the lodge,” Jim decided. “And call the police. You and Jack are going to need your heads looked at by a doctor. That was no light tap Bert gave you.”
“I thought I told you before that I’m a tough old coot,” said Carl impatiently. “The important thing now is to find Ellen.”
“As soon as I get the truck back together,” Jim promised. “Trixie, give me that coil wire, will you? We can come back for the Tan Van later.”
She fished in her pocket for the wire, then turned on Jack. “Why didn’t you bring Ellen with you?”
“It was too dangerous,” he explained nervously. “She s over-”
“Okay, I’ll tell you the truth,” Bert interrupted. “There is no Ellen. We’re all in this together—Carl, Jack, and I. Carl masterminded the whole counterfeiting plan, and we were supposed to pick up the money and keep it for him. He’s just trying to con you so he can make a getaway.”
“That’s right,” said Jack. “I think you’d better stop worrying about us and concentrate on the real criminal—that old man.”
Trixie hadn’t missed the way Jack’s mouth had fallen open when Bert had started talking. “We’ve met Ellen before,” she said smugly. “And we’re not going to play any more games. We know exactly what’s been going on. We even know that you’ve been playing ghost,” she told Bert.
“Right on the ball, aren’t you?” he replied sarcastically. “When Pat first mentioned investigators coming to the lodge, I decided to put them on the trail of something far away from me. I was relieved when the investigators turned out to be a bunch of teen-agers, because then I could get you chasing ghosts.”
“Except we found out you were the teen-agers that helped the police stop the gun smuggling,” Jack put in angrily.
“We decided to give you a little test to find out how good you really were,” said Bert, '“so we pulled the lights-out routine. Figured that out in nothin’ flat, didn’t you? Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you? When you said at the Purple Turnip that you weren’t on the trail of the ghost anymore, I knew you had to be taken care of.”
Jim stopped working on the engine to glare at Bert. “Thus, the tree incident,” he said curtly.
“I don’t get your part in this, Jack,” said Honey. “Are you really afraid of ghosts? Didn’t you know that it was Bert playing ghost?”
“I played my part pretty well,” Jack boasted. “My job was to talk about ghosts at all the right times. If you had followed the clues you were supposed to, you’d be chasing a ghost now instead of giving us a headache.”
Finally Jim got the engine purring, and after tying Bert and Jack securely in the back of the truck, the others squeezed into the cab.
“Tell us what happened down there,” Trixie said to Carl once Jim had the truck moving. “We could see what was going on, but we were too far away to hear a thing.”
“They told me that they couldn’t bring Ellen with them,” Carl sputtered. “They said it was too dangerous, so they would just tell me where she was. I wasn’t about to go for a deal like that. If those thugs hurt Ellen, I’ll—”
“Did they, give you any clues as to where she might be?” Honey asked quickly.
“They said there was too much danger of an avalanche where she is. They were afraid after they almost got caught in one after the big snowstorm we had last Saturday.”
“That’s the snowstorm we arrived in,” Trixie told Carl. “That’s when I saw you in the woods. I guess you were looking for your daughter.”
Close to the lodge, they saw Bert and Jack’s little rented car in a ditch off the road.
“Their own car couldn’t make it through all the new snow,” jeered Trixie, “so they stole Pat and Katie’s four-wheel-drive truck.”
“And fooled us,” added Honey.
Jim pulled into the parking lot and let Honey out. “Honey, why don’t you get Pat and Katie and Miss Trask and the others back to our suite? Trixie and I can get Bert and Jack in the back way. That way we won’t disturb the party.”
All the others were at the suite by the time Jim, Trixie, and Carl came in with Bert and Jack.
“We were so worried!” said Di, throwing her arms around Trixie. “As soon as Mart introduced Bert and Jack and they didn’t appear, we knew what was going on.”
“We were going to give you ten minutes more,” added Brian.
Katie left to fetch a doctor, then Jim called the police. “They’re coming right over,” he announced, turning to Bert and Jack. “I guess you’ll be beginning the new year behind bars.”
“Are you three all right?” Miss Trask asked. “I could tell you’ve been working on some kind of case, but this is more than I expected.”
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” begged Pat.
“What about the party?” Trixie asked. “Mart, shouldn’t you and Di be out there telling everyone what to do?”
“And miss another thrilling, death-defying installment in the life of Trixie Belden? Are you kidding? We asked Linda and Wanda to take over the show for us.”
“I’m glad to see you’re getting my name straight,” Trixie joked weakly. Then she sat down on the fireplace hearth and briefly filled Pat and Miss Trask in on the tale. When she was through, Miss Trask sighed and Pat wiped his forehead.
“All that under my very nose, and I didn’t even see it,” Pat commented incredulously.
Carl stood up impatiently. “We’ve got to find Ellen. They said she’s near an avalanche area. She may be... h-hurt.”
Pat looked concerned. “Unfortunately, there’re all kinds of places right now where there’s avalanche danger.”
“Maybe we can find a map in their room,” Honey suggested.
Katie returned with the doctor, and while he examined Jim, Carl, and Jack, the girls accompanied Pat to search Bert and Jack’s room. They found it totally stripped of Jack’s and Bert’s belongings.
“How about that!” exlaimed Pat. “They were going to leave without paying their bill.”
“See if you can find any clues,” Trixie urged. “Honey and I’ll check their car.”
The two girls walked out into the snowy parking lot and down the hill toward Bert and Jack’s car. They still had their flashlights with them, and Trixie was able to see luggage in the backseat. “I guess they were going to come back for it after they got the money,” she said.
She opened the car door and checked the glove compartment. “Gleeps, look at this! A one-way plane ticket from Groverville to Boston for tonight’s flight. So Bert was planning to double-cross Jack all along. There’s only one ticket!”
Honey shuddered. “I sure would hate to have Bert as a friend.”
“I’m just so worried about Ellen out in those woods,” said Trixie. “They probably haven’t taken her food for quite a while if she’s someplace where there’s avalanche danger. And it’s been snowing so long. She could die of exposure!”
“Don’t talk that way,” Honey said. “Besides, I don’t think even Bert and Jack would leave her out in the open. She must be in a tent or some kind of natural protection.”
Trixie motioned for Honey to be quiet. Off in the bushes, they heard a rustling sound. Someone was coming through the woods toward them. Trixie, her heart thumping, froze in fear. Had Jack and Bert escaped? Was there another member of the gang they didn’t know about?
As the rustling grew louder, Trixie and Honey crouched behind the car, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t be seen.
Then Trixie peeked over the edge of the car and saw who it was.
“Eric!” Trixie called as she jumped out from behind the car.
Eric almost fell off his skis. “Don’t do that to people,” he gasped. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.” Trixie wasn’t listening. “The kidnappers have been caught!” she yelled. “And we know where your mother is!”
A Very Happy New Year • 19
WHAT?” Eric and Honey cried in the same voice.
“We don’t have any idea where she is,” Honey protested.
“Is she all right?” demanded Eric.
“We don’t know, Eric,” Trixie admitted. “The kidnappers didn’t have her with them. But they gave us enough clues to figure out where she is.”
“Trixie Belden, what are you talking about?” cried Honey.
“They said she was near where an avalanche was,” Trixie told her. “It’s what you just said that brought everything together.”
“What did I say?”
“That she has to be in some protected area. Remember when Mart got caught in that avalanche? We had just seen a masked skier on the other side of the snowfield. And remember Di telling us about seeing caves on the hill across the river? Ellen must be in one of those caves, and that must have been Jack who we saw, probably taking her food!”
“Trixie, you’re right!” Honey squealed.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s go!” said Eric.
When Trixie, Honey, and Eric stormed into the suite with their news, everyone clamored to go with them. Only Katie and Miss Trask elected to go back to what was left of the party. The doctor wouldn’t allow Carl or Jim to leave the suite. The pair were furious until Brian pointed out that the police, who were expected any minute, would need their testimonies before arresting Bert and Jack. Besides, someone had to stay behind to guard the kidnappers.
The Mystery at Mead's Mountain Page 14