The Mystery of the Castaway Children

by Campbell, Julie

  “He knew how to milk?” Brian asked.

  “Sure, doesn’t everybody?” the boy asked, grinning.

  “Not I,” Brian said, “and I live on a farm. I just don’t happen to have a speaking acquaintance with a goat.” At that moment, the goat bunted Brian’s leg.

  “Now you have,” needled Mart. “Say how-de-doo!”

  The boy whizzed away on his bicycle, and Trixie sighed. “It’s too dark to search the woods now, but I’m certainly coming back tomorrow. Are you free, Honey?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t keep me at home,” Honey answered.

  “Mart and I have a lot of work on the farm tomorrow,” Brian said, “so that leaves us out.”

  “Regan’s tied up with dental checkups at the stables,” Jim said, “so I have to do the routine chores. It may be noon before I’m free to drive us here.”

  “We could ride Susie and Lady,” Honey ventured hesitantly.

  “That’s a pretty wild trail cutting through the heart of the preserve,” objected Jim.

  “We can bicycle,” Trixie declared sturdily. “But now let’s get home so we can get some rest first.” In the middle of a yawn, she remembered that Jim had left his bicycle at Crabapple Farm. “May I ride your ten-speed tomorrow, Jim?”

  Jim grinned. “Sure, just don’t get arrested for speeding.”

  Mart whooped, and Jim went on, “You think I’m kidding? Sergeant Molinson threatened to give me a speeding ticket if he ever caught me riding on a public highway the way we go down the bicycle trail.”

  When they got home, the young Beldens found their parents silently relaxing on the dark porch. Only the creaking of the porch swing betrayed their presence.

  Mrs. Belden went inside to mix the dough for the next day’s bread baking, and Brian and Mart soon followed her.

  Trixie slumped down on a porch step and began running clues through her mind.

  “You had a phone call from Molinson,” her father informed her. “Another note came, this time with instructions about leaving the money.” “How can they do that?” Trixie cried. “We have the baby, and Davy’s taking care of himself. We haven’t found one shred of evidence to indicate that a man’s been traveling with him.” Who could possibly be trying to collect twenty thousand dollars from the Dodges, a sum that would leave them practically bankrupt? Wait a minute, thought Trixie, jerking herself upright. There’s something awfully peculiar about that sum. It’s not a very large amount for a ransom, for one thing. For another thing, who would know that the Dodges managed to collect that amount at their auction? Jeepers, it has to be someone connected with the auction itself! Suddenly, she remembered that she hadn’t had a chance to ask her father about the auction process.

  “Dad,” Trixie pleaded, “will you tell me how an auction works, please?”

  Her father answered after a thoughtful pause. “Well, an auction is a pretty cut-and-dried affair, regulated by law. An auctioneer is bonded to ensure his honesty, and he pays for a license. He can be fined or have his license revoked if he doesn’t obey the law, so he has to be very careful about the clerks he hires.”

  “They’re the ones who keep the records?” asked Trixie.

  “Right. There’s an inventory list that shows what’s to be sold, and a sales record that lists what actually was sold. You see, a sale isn’t complete until the auctioneer says ‘Sold!’ and taps his desk with his gavel. A bid is an offer, but the drop of the gavel changes that bid to a contract. That means the seller has to sell and the buyer has to buy.”

  “What about fraud?” Trixie guessed shrewdly. Her feeling was mounting that there was some kind of chicanery connected with the Dodge auction.

  “Some people are greedy,” Peter Belden conceded. “A dummy bidder might raise the honest bid. The seller might get someone to bid in on something that wasn’t selling for enough. Stolen goods may be sold. A lot of things can happen. Still, our laws do a pretty good job of keeping auction cheating under control.”

  “Suppose...” Trixie’s voice trembled with the weight of a brand-new idea, the way a branch trembles when a bird drops down to rest.

  “When you begin to suppose, Trixie, anything can happen,” her father sighed.

  “Just suppose,” Trixie persisted, “there’s somebody connected with the auction who does get greedy. He knows just about how much money the family’s goods can be sold for, so he decides to kidnap their children and ask for that exact amount of money.”

  “Then what?” prompted Mr. Belden.

  “I—I don’t know what happens next,” Trixie admitted. “Dad, did the sergeant say when the ransom money was to be delivered?”

  “The note said Saturday night at nine o’clock.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Trixie wailed. “Yipes! That gives us just one day to—”

  Her father interrupted. “In your hypothetical case, I suppose you realize that the logical persons to suspect are the clerks. Now, you know you can’t go around making charges without proof. If the clerks are innocent, they can sue you. If they’re guilty, you put yourself in danger along with those hypothetical children.” Peter Belden became more serious by the second. “I strongly advise you to call Molinson if that brain of yours is cooking up a plan to see those clerks.’ Then he leaned forward and captured both her hands. “Trixie, where did you get this great lump of curiosity that keeps all of us in hot water?”

  “Same place Brian and Mart got theirs about medicine and agriculture, I guess.”

  Her father sighed. “But their interests don’t keep getting them in trouble.”

  Trixie said good night and went inside, her head whirling with all the new information. She paused in the kitchen doorway.

  Her mother wrapped a large bowl of dough with a linen towel and said, “Penny for your thoughts, dear.”

  “Oh, Moms, I just this minute realized how awful it will be to give up Dodgy.” Trixie’s voice came out weak and lonely, like the wail of a lost child. She decided to stop in the guest room to kiss Dodgy good night. An instant later, she came darting back to the kitchen.

  “Moms, where is he?” she gasped. “His basket is gone!”

  Smitty’s T-Shirt • 11

  RELAX, TRIXIE,” her mother admonished. “Eileen felt that she had to go home for the weekend in case her house is being watched. So we drove her there, and she left Dodgy in our care. Brian took the basket to his room for the night.”

  “Brian has to get up early to work in the fields tomorrow,” Trixie recalled. “He needs his sleep. I’ll take Dodgy to my room.”

  Mrs. Belden disagreed. “Brian can afford to miss sleep once in a while. If he wants to share this night with a sleeping baby, let him. That’s part of his growing up. Someday a child who is desperately ill may live because Brian Belden learned to put a baby’s comfort ahead of his own.”

  Trixie heard tears as well as pride in her mother’s voice. “Brian’s growing up too fast already!” she stormed. “So’s everybody!” She whirled around and went upstairs to her own room.

  Change. She didn’t mind it, except when it adversely affected people and places she loved. Because she had learned to love Dodgy, she had to get his family reunited. He must grow up with the same kind of family love that she knew. But how could she do all that in one day?

  “I must!” she muttered fiercely.

  She was already into her pajamas before she decided that her father was right about calling Sergeant Molinson. After she’d dialed the number on the hall phone, she anticipated the sergeant’s reaction.

  Sure enough, he was impatient. “This better be important. I’m at work, you know.”

  “So am I,” retorted Trixie. “I have more clues about Davy.”

  “Okay,” he barked. “By the way, the lab tests proved that Davy handled that baby bottle. Of course, we had to separate his prints from some I’m sure were yours. Next time, use gloves. All right, fire away.”

  Trixie, thankful that he wasn’t there to see her flushed cheeks, gave him
a detailed report of the clues they’d found. She hesitated, then finished boldly, “Now I’d like to know the names of the people who handled the Dodge auction.”

  “Durham and Durham, Elmer and Mike,” the sergeant said tersely. “Their clerks are Jeff and Roger Higgins.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “In Sleepyside. David Dodge does all his business in Sleepyside. Don’t concern yourself with them. We’ve had a tail on Elmer Durham ever since this case broke. So far as we can tell, he’s clean, and so’s his organization.”

  “Including the clerks?” Trixie asked.

  “Jeff Higgins has been in the business as long as I’ve been on the police force. He’s training his son now. They’re bonded.”

  “That doesn’t keep them honest forever,” Trixie said.

  “True. In fact, we’re finding out that Roger Higgins may not be the solid citizen we know his father to be. Steer clear of the whole bunch!

  Oh, and by the way, congratulations on making the connection with the auction.”

  “Thank you,” Trixie said. “I got to thinking how strange it was to ask for twenty thousand from a man going broke, when there are so many kids in mansions in this area. Seems to me it must be someone not used to thinking about money in large amounts, but not above grabbing for all he can get.”

  “Mmm” was the police officer’s noncommittal answer.

  When Trixie hung up, she said the same thing. She’d have to store all these tidbits until the next day. She was certainly too exhausted to think any more that night.

  For the first time, Dodgy slept through his night feeding. He let the household know it, loud and clear, right on the dot of six o’clock the next morning.

  Trixie woke up when Brian’s feet hit the floor with a thump. She rushed to help. “You get Dodgy’s milk, and I’ll dress him,” she offered, taking the baby from his basket.

  By this time, Dodgy was strong enough to empty his bottle in ten minutes. Brian set the basket in a protected area by the kitchen hutch.

  Every Belden stopped by the basket to smile and coo at Dodgy even before they greeted each other. The by now familiar morning routine made Trixie’s heart hurt when she thought of the Dodges.

  She felt herself balancing on a high teeter-totter. She knew Dodgy could not be left alone for a minute. On the other hand, she simply had to make that trip to the old Dutch barn as soon as possible. It would take forever to get to the barn on a bicycle. To make a decent search was going to take even more time. How was she to manage?

  While Trixie fretted, the telephone rang. Mart took the call. It was Di. From his expression, it was apparent that she was asking if she could come for breakfast. “Dost thou need a chariot?” he asked finally.

  Evidently not, for he hung up an instant later. Then he reported the conversation, ending with, “She said she doesn’t eat much, so don’t dither, Moms.” Instead of pulling out his chair, he tilted it backward between his long legs and dropped onto it with a plop. With no lost motion, his right hand reached for the toast, his left for the honeypot.

  “Good coordination,” remarked Peter Belden dryly.

  Mart frowned critically. “But lacking in finesse,” he decided.

  His mother lifted runaway blond curls from her warm brow, cast an amused glance at the little scene, and reached for her breadboard.

  Suddenly a load was lifted from Trixie’s shoulders. Di was coming! She would take care of Dodgy and love every minute of it.

  Without waiting for Di to arrive, Trixie gulped down her breakfast and went to call Honey. Then she went outside to wait for her. Unexpectedly, Honey arrived with Jim in the Bob-White station wagon.

  “I thought you had to work at the stable,” Trixie said to Jim.

  “I did,” he answered, “but I got up a few hours early. When I thought of all the miles you were going to have to pedal, I decided I could miss some sleep and help you out.”

  “I’m so glad,” Trixie said earnestly. “We have a deadline—nine o’clock tonight.”

  Briefly she filled in Honey and Jim on her latest theory about the would-be kidnapper having something to do with the auction.

  “Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis,” Honey agreed slowly.

  Trixie sighed. “Dad said something like that, too.”

  “He meant, and we mean,” Jim said, “that you’ve made several assumptions that remain to be proved. As I see it, the sooner we find Davy, the better off everyone will be.”

  “Jim’s right,” said Honey, starting to get back inside the station wagon. “The Dodge children’s safety is the most important thing.”

  “Okay,” said Trixie, “but now how am I going to explain to Moms why I can’t do my chores this morning? She’s so busy that she won’t even have time to listen to my very good excuse.” Instantly Honey turned around. “You won’t have to bother her,” she said. “We’ll help you with your work, won’t we, Jim?”

  With three people doing the work of one, it wasn’t long before Jim was pulling into the weed-grown driveway of the Dutch barn on Old Telegraph Road. Even on a Saturday morning, the lot was full of activity. Hammers banged, machinery whined, and men shouted. Jim spotted the foreman and walked over to him, hand outstretched. “Jim Frayne, Glen Road.”

  “Oh, sure.Smitty, here. I remember you, young fellow. My men put the new roof on the Manor House stables a few months back. What can I do for you?”

  This was easier than Trixie had expected. She stepped forward to say, “We’re hunting for a small boy and a black Shetland. Have you seen them?”

  Smitty pushed his visored cap to the back of his head. “Not for several days. The kid seemed to have his hands full keeping track of that rascal. He had his mind on something back there in the woods.”

  Smitty shook his head. “I haven’t been able to get that kid out of my mind. He seemed hungry, but he wouldn’t ask for a bite of food if it killed him. It got so that the men would leave parts of sandwiches, apples, stuff like that, and tell him he’d do them a favor by eating the stuff. They told him they didn’t want bees buzzing around the scraps in their lunch pails. I thought about calling the cops and asking them if somebody was looking for a missing kid, but, well—I guess I just never got around to it.”

  “Did you give him milk?” Trixie asked. “Come to think of it, he did ask to buy goat

  milk. Naturally I told him to help himself. The goat works here, same as we do. She’s our scrub remover.”

  Smitty grinned. “You’ve heard about a goat’s strange appetite? Well, I never did put much stock in that. You know, tin cans and all. Now? Well, I don’t know. I left a T-shirt on a sawhorse, and it disappeared slicker’n a whistle. The only culprit I could see was Nancy!”

  Trixie and Honey exchanged a knowing glance, and Trixie decided against telling Smitty that his T-shirt had wrapped a baby’s bottom.

  Friends of Moses White ● 12

  DID YOU EVER SEE a man with the boy?” Honey asked.

  “No, miss, he was a loner.” A carpenter called for help, and Smitty walked away, shouting, “Hope you find that kid. His pony was a friendly little devil. Wouldn’t mind having him for my kids!”

  Trixie, Honey, and Jim called their thanks to Smitty and headed into the woods across from the barn.

  “Let’s fan out,” Trixie said. “Davy’s camp must have been close to the road, or else he couldn’t have run back and forth when the pony’s foot was caught in the chain.”

  The pitiful little camp was not that hard to find. A heap of boughs, all of them small enough to break by hand, had been arranged like a big bird’s nest.

  “Poor little kids,” Honey mourned.

  “Smart little kids,” Jim corrected. “See? Food for the pony.”

  A clean spring bubbled in a tiny rock grotto and trickled away into a swale of lush green grass. A bottle had been left in the spring, propped up so that it was washed by running water. A diaper was caught in a bush nearby, and the second blue bootee was discovered in
the nest.

  “Something scared them out of here,” Jim surmised thoughtfully.

  “Or someone,” Trixie said. “Come on, let’s go to Sleepyside.”

  Jim observed the familiar gleam in her eyes. “Uh-oh,” he said. “I have this feeling you’re going to hunt up those auctioneers.”

  “But the sergeant said to stay away from them,” said Honey, looking alarmed. “Besides, I thought we decided to concentrate on finding Davy, not on searching for crooks.”

  “Finding Wicky will make it easy to find Davy,” Trixie reminded her. “If we can see that auction book, that will tell us if Wicky was auctioned and who might have him. Anyway, even the sergeant said that Elmer Durham was honest. What harm could there be in just talking to the man, when we might learn something very important?”

  Jim and Honey looked doubtful. Finally Jim said, “Well, I can see you’re determined to go, and we re not about to let you walk into something alone, are we, Honey?”

  “I guess not,” Honey agreed.

  “Thanks, you guys,” said Trixie, already on her way back to the car.

  Jim stopped the car at Wimpy’s so Trixie could check the auctioneer’s address in the phone book. Something made her also jot down the Balsam Street address of the two clerks.

  Elmer Durham lived in a more than comfortable house in a beautiful residential area. Well-clipped lawns and hedges, riots of color in flower beds, and a fountain tossing rainbows gave no hint of mystery or crime.

  A maid in a blue and white uniform asked the three young people to wait on an antique bench in a square hall. Each piece of furniture, from the oriental rugs to the gilt-framed mirror, was gorgeous. Trixie wondered silently if all auctioneers were this rich.