The Mystery of the Uninvited Ghost

by Campbell, Julie

  “Oh, I’m sorry, honey!” Trixie shivered with his fright added to her own. “Do they know we have three telephones?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby muttered.

  “I’ll go upstairs and call the police. You go right on doing what they told you to do. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Bobby said.

  Trixie made herself take time to pour milk and drink it, then she hugged Bobby and left the room. Oh, please, hurry! she prayed, waiting for her telephone call to go through.

  She found the police station in an uproar. The police had been called to Glen Road Inn, and she finally contacted Sergeant Molinson there.

  “We need you at Crabapple Farm, sir!” she begged. “Bobby’s in danger! It’s that gang!”

  “Be right there,” Sergeant Molinson promised.

  Trixie went back downstairs and stood in the dark, watching Bobby without being seen. This whole nightmare had begun when Bobby used the “nock-lers.” Now Cap’s “nocklers” watched Bobby. Suddenly, she realized that Bobby was being watched just as she had watched Miss Ryks. This invasion of privacy was a matter of viewpoint! She much preferred being the watcher instead of the one being watched.

  During the heart-thumping wait for the police, Trixie forgave Bobby for every aggravating thing he’d ever done or said. She prayed for his safety as he went out the kitchen door with the food.

  When she was sure she heard a motor, she ran through the dark house and out the front door. The sergeant had wisely approached without using headlights. She rushed to him, sobbing under her breath, and quickly told him what was happening.

  “When Bobby comes back in the house, lock the door and turn off the lights,” the sergeant instructed her. “My men will take care of rounding up this gang.”

  It was a good plan, but it didn’t work. Trixie waited, but Bobby didn’t come back in the house. When she could stand the waiting no longer, she went after him.

  The instant Trixie opened the kitchen door, she was grabbed. She just had time to scream, as only she could scream, before a voice growled, “Shut up, or you’ve had it!” A hand was clamped over her mouth.

  Mart’s and Brian’s rooms were above the kitchen area. Trixie’s cry awakened them, and they pounded down the stairs. Lights flashed on in the guest room, then upstairs where Mr. and Mrs. Belden slept. Out of the dark came the police.

  Pajamas, police badges, cowboy boots, flashlights, and Reddy jumbled together in a terrifying game of hide-and-seek in and out of the shadows, through the house, around the shed, and into the garden.

  In the midst of the pandemonium, Trixie bit the hand on her mouth, butted hard with her head, and ran for the shed. “Bobby!” she screamed. “Where are you?”

  “They’re holdin’ me!” Bobby wailed.

  Just as Trixie reached Bobby, a pair of arms reached for her. She kicked, screamed, and fought them off until a stem voice boomed, “Trixie Belden! This is Sergeant Molinson!” Trixie calmed down, and the sergeant turned his flashlight on the interior of the shed.

  “There’s nobody else here. They got away!” she exclaimed.

  “Did you expect them to hang around?” the sergeant grumbled. “Our birds have flown the coop.”

  “This time I don’t care!” Trixie cried. “Bobby’s safe!” Her aims went around his shoulders, and she gently led him back to the house.

  Usually Bobby’s tears were minimal, squeezed out for effect. This time the tears gushed down his cheeks.

  Mr. and Mrs. Belden stared in amazement at their children and Sergeant Molinson, standing in an awkward row in the farmhouse kitchen.

  “What in the world is happening here?” Mrs. Belden demanded.

  Bobby told his story. He’d found the gang in the woods. They’d let him join their “secret club,” and it was always his turn to bring refreshments. It was fun until he saw they had Di’s doughnut-shaped radio. When they wouldn’t let him take it back to her, he realized that they were the ones who had robbed the Lynch house.

  “I’m sorry, Moms. I had to give them our food. The frog hunter said he’d make Reddy bleed if I didn't. First Reddy, then Dan. That’s what he said.”

  “Oh, my poor Bobby,” Mrs. Belden mourned.

  “I have to get back to conduct a search at the inn,” the sergeant said wearily. “There were two robberies there tonight.”

  “Miss Ryks?” Trixie asked.

  “How did you know? Somebody took all that junk she wears. Their real haul was Mrs. Boyer's diamond jewelry.”

  “Th-That isn’t what I meant,” Trixie stammered, then thought to herself, I was sure Miss Ryks was the thief.

  “Hallie,” Trixie whispered as she faced her cousin, “this thing is too big for us. We need some help. With police all over the inn, Miss Ryks’ll have to stay in that wheelchair. She can’t do anything to Dan tonight.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brian demanded, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, tonight’s alarm, and the long strain of the search for Dan Mangan.

  “Yesterday, Hallie, Honey, and I found the missing comic that the sergeant suspects of directing a gang of thieves,” Trixie announced, and she turned to Sergeant Molinson. “You’re right. He does—plus he’s Miss Ryks.”

  The sergeant looked skeptical.

  “Listen to me, please!” Trixie begged.

  When the story had been told, from the wheelchair on Glen Road to the gang in the shed, Molinson rubbed his forehead. “All I can say is that I’ll keep a man on duty outside the door of room two-fourteen—”

  “—outside the windows, too!” Trixie interrupted. “That’s how she kept in touch with the gang, when she wasn’t playing the role of Dick Ryks and scaring little boys out of their wits out here in our woods!”

  “The windows, too,” the sergeant conceded. “Since I’ll be a guest at the wedding tomorrow, I’ll be on hand in case something goes wrong. Mr. Wheeler’s asked for a guard for the gift display. I suppose I can spare two men. They won’t be needed at room two-fourteen anyway, if Miss Ryks is at the wedding. Well, I have a long night ahead of me. I’ll see you all at the wedding tomorrow.”

  When the kitchen door closed, Trixie said resentfully, “He doesn’t believe me.”

  Mr. Belden tried to reason with her. “You have to admit that the idea of an invalid in a wheelchair tramping through the woods organizing robberies is pretty farfetched.”

  “Dad!” Trixie wailed. “We saw her with our own eyes! She changed from a woman to a man just by changing wigs and taking off that long dress!”

  “And now you’ve been threatened,” Mrs. Belden said slowly. “Oh, Peter! Maybe we shouldn’t go to the wedding tomorrow.”

  “Were all in the ceremony,” Brian quietly said to his mother. “We have to go.”

  “Do be careful, all of you,” Mrs. Belden begged.

  A night of restless sleep stretched ahead of Trixie. She asked Hallie to sleep in the extra bed in her room.

  Hallie’s berry-black eyes glistened. “Trixie, you’ve never asked me that before.”

  “So now I’m asking,” Trixie said.

  Several times during the night, Trixie awoke from a nightmare about a room filled with watching eyes. Once she called out, “Bobby!”

  She was comforted by Hallie’s answer: “Bobby’s safe. Go back to sleep.” When morning came, Hallie was still there.

  Trixie apologized. “Did I keep you awake?”

  “I love Bobby, too,” Hallie reminded her. “He’s my cousin. That matters.”

  “Yes.” Trixie thought of all the quarrels she d had with Hallie. They weren’t important any longer. Both of them were growing up. Each was becoming her own person—one blond and pert, the other darkly beautiful; one with a firecracker temper, the other matter-of-fact. But both loved people, and both were loyal to family and friends. Trixie couldn’t find the words to tell Hallie what she was thinking. She could only smile at her cousin and watch those incredibly dark eyes begin to glow.

  Almost shyly, Hallie asked,
“Do you ever wonder who you axe?”

  “Yes. You, too?” Trixie asked softly.

  “Do you sometimes feel like you’re standing all alone on a mountaintop with a cold wind blowing? You shout into the wind, but your words get pushed back down your throat. You know you’ll keep swallowing your own words till you can answer the question, ‘Who am I?’ But there’s no one to tell you the answer.”

  Hallie sounded so lost and lonely that Trixie’s eyes misted. I don’t know much about mountaintops,” she said. “I have the feeling that Í m in a glass box. All of the people in the world march past me, but I can’t join them because of the glass. I know that when I can tell just one person who I am, the glass will melt and I can join the parade. It’s hard being a teen-ager, isn’t it?”

  Ill bet you want to be a detective because you want to keep the parade marching safely,” Hallie guessed.

  “Do you think so? Brian and Mart say it’s because I’m so nosy.”

  “My mom would call you a truth seeker,” Hallie said. “My mom has the smarts, so I go along with her most of the time. At home, Cap and Knut treat me like one of the fellows. I was getting so mixed-up, Mom said I needed some close contact with another girl. I thought of you, Trixie, so that’s why I came.”

  “Really?” Trixie gulped. Tm sorry I was rough on you.“

  “If you think you’re rough, you should try living with Cap Belden,” Hallie retorted. “Come on. Let’s get up. Breakfast smells good.”

  At the breakfast table, Mr. Belden tapped the newspaper. “The Teed people are cleared of any guilt in the matter of transporting stolen goods. They simply took an order over the phone.”

  Trixie slid into her chair and picked up her napkin. “I never did think that driver was a thief. He talks too much. He couldn’t keep a secret if he tried.” She heaved a sigh up from her very toes. “I thought Juliana’s wedding day would be the happiest day of the whole summer. Now look at it! That gang and their boss are out there somewhere, and Dan’s missing.”

  “Yes, look at it!” Mrs. Belden lilted. “Bobby’s safe. You’re safe. The weather’s perfect. There’s not a cloud in the sky. It won’t rain on all those beautiful dresses and flowers and—”

  “And guests?” Brian prompted. He glanced up at the clock. “Hey, Hallie, see what time it is! We have

  to pick up the Bob-Whites’ gift at the jewelers in an hour.”

  The Bob-Whites had chosen to give Juliana and Hans a silver music box engraved with all their names. Its cost had drained the treasury, but nobody minded.

  “It’s a long time till the wedding,” Hallie told Brian. “A lot can happen before four-thirty.”

  “‘Friday, the sixth of August, at half after four o’clock,’ ” Mark intoned in a poetry-reading voice.

  “ ‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore,” ’ ” Hallie quoted impishly.

  Trixie frowned. “Don’t say that, Hallie. I never did like that raven.”

  “Honey called,” Mrs. Belden told Trixie. “She’s expecting all of you early.”

  “No problem, Auntie,” Hallie said. “Were all taken care of. Baths, hair, fingernails, toenails—the works.”

  “Hallie, you wouldn’t dare wear that green stuff on your toenails to a wedding!” Trixie shouted.

  “Want to bet?” Hallie drawled and left the kitchen on the run.

  Trixie leaped up to wrestle Hallie to a couch, shouting, “Bobby, help me! Untie Hallie’s sneaker and see if her toes are green!”

  In the noisy scramble that followed, Bobby removed Hallie’s shoe. “Huh! They’re just like everybody else’s toes,” he grumbled.

  “What’s the matter with that?” Brian teased.

  “I wanted ’em to be green, like usual,” Bobby said. The romp dispelled some of Trixie’s uneasiness. Ordinarily, she would have told Honey all the details about last night’s ordeal, but when she reached Manor House, she couldn’t bear to spoil one minute of her best friend’s happy day. She followed Honey to the sewing room to help Ella down the stairs.

  They found Ella Kline on the floor, her crutches beyond her reach. Both girls ran to her rescue. “I skidded,” she said as she dizzily sat up. “Hand me my crutches, please?”

  “You need your wheelchair!” Trixie stormed, thinking of the way Miss Ryks had strode around that bedroom, puffing on a cigar.

  “Yes,” Ella agreed. “I’ve needed it for a long time, but I couldn’t afford it till I got the job at the Bride’s Shop. Right this minute, I need new crutch tips. I have some in my room at the inn. They’re in a dresser drawer.”

  Honey held out her hand when Ella was safely seated in the rocking chair. “If you want to give me the key to your room, I’ll see that someone goes after them during the first break we have.”

  “The manager will have to let you in,” Ella said. “I haven’t seen my key since Dick Ryks gave me a check for the wheelchair and I asked him to put it in my purse, which was out of my reach. Sometimes I have to depend on others. That’s just the way it is.”

  “You’ll have your wheelchair very soon,” Trixie promised. “Miss Ryks is leaving the inn this week.”

  “Honey!Trixie!” Miss Trask appeared in the doorway, waving the notebook she had carried from the day Juliana had chosen her wedding date. “Di’s waiting for us downstairs. We have work to do.”

  For the rest of the morning, Trixie worked indoors. She found herself inventing reasons to go near a window. Uneasily, she studied the smoothly mowed lawns, the freshly clipped shrubbery, and the parking lot Tom had arranged between the stable and the house. If even one member of that gang slipped onto the Manor House grounds without detection, there’d be trouble. She listened for sounds that were out of the ordinary. She studied the names and handwriting on the packages she laid on the long gift table in the alcove where the Bob-Whites had gathered the night of the Lynch robbery.

  “You’re as skittery as a cat,” Jim told her as he placed a large bowl of daisies on the table. “Something’s wrong.”

  Trixie opened her mouth to deny the charge, then sighed instead. She knew that Jim could read her face and manner like the pages of a primer. With a quick glance to be sure they were alone, she told him of Bobby’s ordeal and of the escape of the gang. “And there’s still Ella’s wheelchair and that two-headed fraud, Miss Ryks!”

  Jim didn’t scowl at her burst of venom. “Honey told me about the masquerade. She suspects, and I agree with her, that Miss Ryks stole Mrs. Boyer’s diamonds and ditched her own paste jewelry to draw suspicion away from herself.”

  Trixie nodded. “It has to be like that. I wish I knew why she’s coming to the wedding.”

  “So do I,” Jim said. “I’ll feel better when the police get here to take charge of this room. There’s enough stuff here for a bang-up yard sale!”

  Trixie widened her round blue eyes. “I’ll bet that’s it, Jim! That Oliver Tolliver steals wedding invitations when he can so that he’ll have entry to the houses where the gifts are on display.”

  “And the gifts are unwrapped, so he can tell which are really valuable,” Jim agreed. “Well! Maybe we’ve foiled him this time. Here come Molinson’s men.” For a few minutes, Trixie almost felt safe. The policemen were in plain clothes, but they looked as if they knew how to handle an emergency.

  Lunch was Juliana’s last meal as Miss Maasden. Of the Bob-Whites, only Dan Mangan was absent, and Bobby took his place at the table. After the previous night’s fright, the youngest Belden was unusually quiet.

  After lunch, the Bob-Whites worked in the garden. The minute that shade slanted across the bower, they placed a dozen baskets of daisies, golden-centered and wax-petaled, around it. The altar Regan had built was spread with the same white linen cloth that had been used at the Wheelers’ own wedding. Mrs. Vanderpoel supplied the top cloth of handmade lace. For sentiment’s sake, Mrs. Belden lent her best candlesticks.

  At three o’clock, Miss Trask declared everything in readiness. “It’s time to dress. I thank each and ev
ery one of you for your help. Now, let’s enjoy the wedding, shall we?”

  I’ll try, Trixie thought.

  Slowly, she walked through the garden and took a long look at the wonderland that had been created there. Between the altar in the bower and the bridal table on the terrace by the birdbath, rows of folding chairs waited for guests. Drifting butterflies, shadows of bird wings, and bursts of song made the scene so beautiful that Trixie felt like crying.

  She headed toward the house. As she passed the organ that had been set by the terrace entrance, she thought, At four-thirty, I’ll walk down that aisle of flowers. But what will Miss Ryks be doing? Trixie shivered.

  She met Sergeant Molinson in the lower hall of the house. He looked tired but alert. “About last night, Trixie—don’t you think you let that imagination of yours run away with you? We searched Miss Ryks’s room. There was no makeup or men’s clothing there.” Uh-oh! Trixie thought. She did see us in that mirror. “Her jewelry isn’t as valuable as Mrs. Boyer’s, but it’s still missing. Now, I’ve had a call from her nephew asking me to please pick up his aunt because she doesn’t want to miss the wedding of old friends. If she were a fraud, why would she deliberately put herself in such close contact with the police?”

  Trixie didn’t argue. Plainly, Sergeant Molinson didn’t buy her theory. So it’s up to me to prove Miss Ryks guilty, Trixie decided. But how? If Miss Ryks escapes today, there’ll he other country club acts, other robberies, and other little boys like Bobby in danger. Other teen-agers will be recruited from the streets and trained in crime. She’ll go on and on, becoming more skilled and causing more trouble.

  Trixie brought herself up short when she realized that she was thinking “she,” even though she knew Miss Ryks was the comic, Oliver Tolliver. He or she— did it matter which pronoun was used? This actor was playing out his role till the final curtain dropped.

  Trixie ran to the door to call to the sergeant before he left the porte cochère. “When you go to get Miss Ryks, will you please pick up Ella Kline’s crutch tips? They’re in her room at the inn.”