The Mystery of the Castaway Children

by Campbell, Julie

  “It takes six to eight nails to hold a shoe,” Honey recalled. “Where are the others? And anyway, old Spartan could have thrown a shoe. So could Mr. Lytell’s Belle.”

  I think Spartan and Belle use larger shoes than the one I found,” Trixie argued. “All these clues add up, Honey. Whoever brought Moses rode a horse! He must have!”

  This does place a rider in the right place at the right time,” admitted Honey. “But where’s your horse and where’s your rider? And why did you say ‘he’? Usually a three-month-old baby is with his mother.”

  “He, she—somebody,” Trixie said impatiently. She was elated to see that the hoofprints marked the trail the rest of the way to Glen Road Inn, an old Dutch mansion that had been converted into a rural hotel.

  Honey looked up at the inn and fretted, “Ella might be able to see us from her window. She’ll feel hurt if we don’t stop in and say hi.” Ella Kline was a handicapped woman who lived on the third floor. She sometimes did sewing and mending for the Wheelers.

  “Let’s go up,” said Trixie at once. “She could have seen the horse.”

  “You have horse on the brain,” Honey sighed. “Oh, Honey, you know I like Ella just as much as you do,” said Trixie. “I just have—you know, other things on my mind.”

  They found Ella in her wheelchair, beside her sewing machine. Though her brown eyes sparkled with pleasure at their visit, her hands kept on working. Her lap was heaped with the inn’s linen, which she mended to earn her board

  and room. She was sorting articles from a huge clothes basket, then folding those that didn’t require mending.

  “I saw you coming,” she greeted them warmly.

  “We thought you might,” Honey said.

  While the “How are you’s” and “I’m fine’s” were being exchanged, Trixie walked to the window in front of Ella’s sewing machine.

  “Have you seen a stranger on a horse lately, Ella?” Trixie asked casually.

  Honey threw her a warning frown, but Ella looked interested.

  “How lately?” Ella asked.

  “Like last night,” Trixie said.

  “My goodness, Sergeant Molinson asked me that very same question,” Ella fluttered.

  Trixie felt a twinge of disappointment. She’d forgotten that the sergeant had mentioned following the road all the way to the inn. And she thought she’d been so brilliant, seeking out leads from Ella.

  “Why should I notice one horse?” Ella chattered on. “Seems like half the people on the Hudson own horses. Why, right over there in Chester there’s a statue marking a horse’s grave.”

  Trixie knew about Hambletonian’s red granite obelisk. She wasn’t a really “horsey” person, but she loved the small mare, Susie, and she always listened to Regan’s “horse talk.” She recalled hearing that Hambletonian had fathered one thousand three hundred thirty-five foals, among them a lot of champions. If one horse reproduced himself so many times, it was impossible to imagine what New York’s horse population must be. Scatter all those horses along all those roads she had thought about the previous night, and what did you have? A lot of horses and a lot of miles of roads, that’s what you had.

  Trixie wasn’t one to become discouraged easily, but a heavy sigh escaped her. “May I use your phone, Ella?” she asked abruptly. In answer to the question in Honey’s and Ella’s eyes, she added, “If you don’t ask questions, you won’t find answers.”

  Still, when she had finished a stiff, short conversation with Mr. Lytell, Trixie was no closer to an answer. Swaybacked Belle, the storekeeper’s aged mount, had not lost a shoe. In fact, Belle was growing fat from lack of exercise. “We’ll ask Dan about Spartan,” said Honey. “That’s pointless,” Trixie decided. “We both know Dan takes care of Spartan’s feet. He even carries a hoof-pick in his pocket all the time.”

  “Whatever for?” Ella asked.

  “There are lots of boggy places and rocky ridges on the game preserve,” Honey explained. “Dan doesn’t want Spartan’s feet to become tender, so he cleans them with a hoof-pick.”

  “See? I’d never have known about hoof-picks if you hadn’t dropped in,” Ella said. Coming from another person’s mouth, her words might have sounded like sarcasm, but Ella Kline was interested in the small events that made up the lives of her friends.

  A voice called at the door, “It’s Pete, Ella.”

  “Come in.”

  A tall teen-ager carried in a huge basket of laundry, and Ella set to work without delay. She told Trixie and Honey, “The inn has its own laundry room in the basement. It’s hard for me to get to it in my wheelchair, so Pete brings a load when he has a spare minute.”

  Ella flipped a man’s white sock into her basket. “You didn’t see if that needed mending,” Trixie said.

  “I mend only the inn’s linen,” Ella explained, “but anything that’s left in a room gets washed. Someone probably kicked that sock under a bed or left it in a bathroom. Sometimes people reclaim things they leave in a room, but usually they don’t. The manager gives the good stuff to charity.” She held up a lace-trimmed slip. “Like this. Oh, we get all kinds of articles.” She rolled her chair closer to the basket and dug to the bottom. “Some of them are kind of mysterious, too. I’ve been curious about this, for example. Does either of you know what it is?” She lifted up a mass of fine mesh.

  Trixie shook it out, exposing dangling strong ties. “A fly sheet!” she exclaimed. Immediately, she dropped on all fours and told Honey, “Pretend I’m a horse. It’s a hot day, and I’m just in from exercise. Here comes a cloud of pesky flies.” Carried away by her own imagination, she whinnied with annoyance.

  “Whoa, girl,” coaxed Honey, getting into the spirit of the game. She draped the mesh over Trixie’s back, tied the strings across her chest, and put a soft browband on her forehead. The band fell down, of course, since Trixie’s head was nowhere near as large as a horse’s.

  “Oops, the wind must be blowing,” giggled Honey. “I need a blanket pin to fasten your fly sheet under your belly.”

  “Watch your language,” Trixie tut-tutted.

  “You’re the one who said you were a horse,” Honey insisted.

  “Don’t believe everything I say,” Trixie declared. “Get me out of here—this is hot! I don’t see how a horse stands a sheet on a hot day.”

  “A horse can get a chill, even when the air is warm, if a breeze blows on his damp coat,” Honey reminded her.

  Ella clapped her hands as Trixie scrambled to her feet. “I always have such fun when you girls visit me! I learn about things, too.”

  “Useful things—like hoof-picks and fly sheets,” Trixie said dryly.

  “Well, if I ever find another fly sheet in my basket, at least I’ll recognize it. But, Trixie, you didn’t demonstrate that ropy-looking loop.”

  “Can’t,” chuckled Trixie. “That goes under the horse’s tail!”

  “Sorry I asked,” Ella groaned, looking at the clock. “Will you girls have lunch with me?” Trixie hesitated.

  Honey, thinking that Trixie was tactlessly putting her own desire to get back on the case over Ella’s feelings, cried, “We’d love to, Ella!”

  Then she turned to glare at Trixie.

  Sergeant Molinson Needs Help • 5

  ACTUALLY, TRIXIE had paused because she’d remembered that Ella was on a small salary.

  Ella seemed to sense her feeling. “It won’t be fancy—just a sandwich,” she went on with no embarrassment. “I’m allowed to have company as long as I don’t order fresh lobster.”

  “Well, jeepers!” Trixie simpered, putting her finger to her cheek in a dainty gesture that would have made Mart proud. “I myself am missing green turtle soup at home today. Moms will never forgive me!”

  “La-di-dah!” Honey snorted. “If I ordered that today, our cook would send me out to catch the turtle.”

  “I said I was missing green turtle soup!” Trixie hooted. “Actually, I was going to spread peanut butter on a slab of bread.”r />
  Ella reached for the telephone. “I’m sure I can do better than that.”

  “I’ll run down to the kitchen and pick up the order,” Trixie offered.

  “Pete will appreciate that. Thank you.”

  Trixie felt a little guilty. She wasn’t trying to save steps for Pete; she wanted to see if someone in the kitchen had noticed any strange riders on the path.

  When she asked the short-order cook, she received a shrewd glance. “Is something wrong up your way? Sergeant Molinson wanted to know about riders, too. The answer is no.”

  So he beat me to it again, thought Trixie, chagrined.

  Back in Ella’s room, Ella greeted Trixie with a pouting expression. “Why were you wasting time talking about horses, Trixie Belden, when you had such exciting news to tell me?” she asked.

  Honey confessed that she had just told Ella about finding Moses.

  “Oh...” Normally, Trixie didn’t like to talk about a case until she had more to go on. The sergeant apparently felt the same way. Neither the cook nor Ella Kline had been questioned about a baby. The policeman had been concerned only about travelers. It just went to show that, whether beginner or professional, one could only start at the outer edge of a web and work inward, strand by strand, to find the spider.

  Trixie flashed her widest grin. “I don’t suppose there are baby clothes in that basket?” she hinted.

  “I wish I could say yes,” Ella said soberly. “Would you like to see for yourself?”

  “Did the sergeant look?” Trixie asked.

  Ella shook her head, and Trixie seized the chance to investigate something the sergeant had overlooked. Of course, Ella was right. There was no sign of a baby’s things in her basket.

  Trixie forced a smile. “Let’s eat our sandwiches,” she said. “All this talk about lobsters and peanut butter has got me starving!”

  By the time the two girls, hot and itchy from their hours in the woods, returned to Crabapple Farm, Mrs. Belden had brought her household under control. She was enjoying the shaded backyard with Di and Moses, who lay on a well-padded blanket in a sunny spot in the grass. Di fussed to make sure the rays of the sun didn’t shine directly into his eyes. She turned him on his stomach and smoothed his hair.

  “How do you know when he’s had enough sun?” Honey asked, plopping down near him.

  “It’s like ironing,” replied Di. “You touch him with a damp finger. If he sizzles, he’s had enough.” Di kept a perfectly straight face except for her pansy-colored eyes, which sparkled with mischief.

  “Come on,” Honey begged. “Remember, I was an only child most of my life. Jim was fifteen years old when he joined the family!”

  Di turned serious. “We re watching the clock over there on the steps and keeping close track of his skin color.”

  Trixie touched the baby’s roughened, chapped skin. “Whoever had him last wasn’t so careful,” she said softly.

  “I’m a better sitter than that whoever,” Di declared.

  Di went home to dinner in the late afternoon, and soon it was time for Trixie and Honey to share the baby’s six o’clock feeding. The two girls arrived at the Belden dinner table radiant with renewed energy.

  “Are you just ego-tripping in general?” inquired Mart. “Or did the baby succumb to your indoctrination and tell you he wants to be a detective when he grows up?”

  Trixie glared at him, but Honey had to giggle. “Neither,” she told him. “There’s just—oh, you know, something special about a baby.”

  “Your point is well taken,” Mart agreed. “I’d recite a poem for you concerning youth’s incorruptibility, but, alas, I myself am too old to remember such innocence.”

  “Oh, Mart,” sighed his mother, “if you talk this way at fifteen, you’re going to be an unbearable old man.” Before Mart had a chance to defend himself, she turned to Mr. Belden. “Peter, I do wish you’d look at our washing machine. Something seems to have caught in the spinning basket.”

  Mr. Belden waggled dark brows at his family. “I’m sure someone else could handle it better.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Brian, who was used to tinkering with his jalopy.

  Jim arrived as the group was finishing dinner, and he rumpled Honey’s hair when he passed her chair. “Who’s the new boarder?” he queried. “She vaguely resembles a sister I used to have.” Honey wrinkled her nose. “Seems to me that when I last saw you, dear brother, you were in this very house, too.”

  “And here I plan to stay,” said Jim. “I volunteer for the ten o’clock feeding. But—” he paused dramatically—“I do not come empty-handed. Miss Trask sent a freezer of black walnut ice cream and a coconut cake as partial payment on our board bill.”

  Mart jumped up to offer Jim his chair. “Why didn’t you say so?” he whooped. Serving dishes had only just been emptied of baked ham, garden vegetables, and scalloped potatoes, but Mart was always ready to eat.

  “Hollow legs,” muttered his father.

  “Toes, too,” Bobby said.

  Minutes later, Dan Mangan rode Spartan down the bridle trail. Trixie came out to greet him, and even while she was saying hello, she was looking at Spartan’s great hooves. Almost covered by long, white feathering hairs, his feet were well cared for. No shoes were missing, and, as Trixie had suspected, Spartan also wore a much larger shoe than the one she had found.

  “It’s time I saw that baby,” Dan demanded.

  “You’ll love him,” said Trixie as she led Dan to the clothes basket.

  Too listless to play, Moses still was able to turn his head and follow a source of sound with alert eyes. Dan stood beside him for several minutes before touching one tiny hand. Fingers moved, found Dan’s thumb, and clung. Dan was so thrilled that he refused to take his hand away until Moses went to sleep.

  While standing with Dan near Moses’ basket, Trixie noticed that the hooked rug by the guestroom beds seemed a little crooked. When she went to straighten it, she found a few clods of dried mud on the rug. Trixie frowned. Grandma Belden had made that rug when she was young. She had designed it, dyed the wool, and spent countless hours pulling yarn through canvas. Beldens were under strict orders to keep muddy feet off of it. Trixie collected the clods, then went to answer the doorbell.

  Di stood on the porch steps, and Trixie could see the Lynch Cadillac in the driveway.

  “Someone has to take me home, or else I’ll have to stay all night,” announced Di in her usual polite tones.

  “Stay,” Trixie invited. “You can share the two o’clock feeding.”

  At once, Di turned around and yelled, “See you in the morning, Dad!”

  Trixie and Di were soon joined on the porch by the rest of the Beldens and Bob-Whites. While Jim scooped out masses of cold creamy goodness, Honey cut and served the coconut cake. Doves called from their high perches, and swallows swooped for insects just above the tops of maples and oaks.

  Bobby divided his time between eating his treat and chasing lightning bugs. When his mesh-covered jar contained three miniature flashlights, he wanted to go in and share them with Moses.

  “Don’t you dare,” Trixie warned. “If you wake him up, I’ll put him in your room for you to take care of.”

  “Neato!” Bobby chirped.

  “When are we going to have Mo’s party?” bubbled Di.

  “We re having one now,” Jim said.

  “No, a real party, with a long dress for him, and-”

  “Dress!” Bobby hooted. “Moses is a boy!”

  “You wore a dress when you got your name,” Mart informed him.

  “I did not!” Bobby roared.

  “Get the photograph album,” Mrs. Belden said, “and see for yourself.”

  Bobby huffed into the house and came back with the family album, which he examined using a flashlight. Baby pictures were mounted on the first page, one child dark like Mr. Belden and three children as fair as Mrs. Belden.

  “Everybody’s got dresses on,” Bobby groaned in disbelief, �
��even Brian.” With great dignity, he closed the album.

  ‘Babies wear dresses to dress up,” Di explained. “Let’s have the party at my house Sunday. That will give me plenty of time to find one of the twins’ dresses and plan the treats.”

  “What shall we bring?” Trixie asked.

  “Just Moses Bob-White,” Di said happily.

  Down at the end of the lane, headlights loomed out of the darkness and moved toward the house.

  “Oh, no,” Di moaned, “Mother’s sent Harrison after me.”

  Instead of the Lynch butler, it was Sergeant Molinson who stepped out of the car and came to the porch steps.

  “Would you like some ice cream, sir?” Jim asked politely.

  To Trixie’s surprise, the sergeant accepted Jim’s offer gratefully. Usually he had such an attitude of gruff authority that it was hard to imagine him doing something as human as slurping ice cream. As he ate, he stretched his long legs and, with his free hand, rubbed his lower back.

  “Tired?” Peter Belden asked.

  “It’s been a long day,” Sergeant Molinson admitted. “I’ve been checking out every possible lead on the baby—in between stopping bar fights and investigating robberies and dealing with assorted drifters and drunks. This August heat is getting on everyone’s nerves. The crime rate always seems to rise around this time of year.”

  Trixie thought that the sergeant looked like a person with several problems too many. Maybe...

  Trixie gulped, shocked at the idea that had just occurred to her. Maybe the sergeant would accept help on this case from the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency! Any other day, it was like pulling teeth to get him to admit that Trixie Belden and Honey Wheeler made his work easier. But tonight...

  Prudently, Trixie began to arrange her arguments in her mind before presenting them to the officer. Now: The farm was the scene of the crime....

  “Trixie!”

  With glazed eyes, Trixie searched for the speaker.

  “Trixie, the sergeant has spoken to you twice,” said Mr. Belden.