“Why, Trixie,” Honey exclaimed, “I’ve never known you to be homesick before.”
Trixie turned her head and smiled. “No, it isn’t what you think. It’s just that my dad knows everything there is to know about lending and borrowing money. If he were here, he could tell me about it.”
Di, toothbrush in hand, poked her head into the room. “Maybe I can help,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
Trixie thought for a moment, then said, “I was wondering what would happen if Mr. Trask really didn’t have the money he borrowed.”
Di frowned and leaned against the door. “That’s funny,” she answered. “I was just thinking about that myself. I heard my parents talking about something like this once. I’m not sure if I can explain it, but I think the way it works is this:
If you want to borrow money, you usually have to give something to the lender to let him know you’re going to pay him back.”
“What kind of something?” Honey asked.
“I think it has to be something else of value that you own,” Di said slowly. “It’s called collateral, or security, or something. Then, if you can’t pay back what you’ve borrowed, you have to forfeit whatever the thing was you’d given the lender.”
“Such as the deed to this place?” Trixie asked. Di nodded.
“So if Mr. Trask borrowed money from Mr. Morgan,” Trixie said, thinking hard, “and then couldn’t pay him back—”
“Then Mr. Morgan would take over Pirate’s Inn.” Di frowned. “Did you understand all that? I’m not sure I understand it myself.”
“You made it as clear as anything,” Honey said loyally.
Di looked pleased as she said good-night and went to her room.
“So that’s one mystery solved,” Trixie remarked. Honey chuckled as she climbed into the lower bunk. “I know another mystery you can solve right now,” she said. “You can tell me when you’re going to turn out the light and get to bed.” Trixie wasn’t listening. “I’ve just thought of something else,” she said. “If Mr. Trask didn’t really have the money he said he did, maybe he’d try to get it.”
Honey yawned. “Maybe he would.”
“Then just maybe”—Trixie sounded eager— “when we were all in the dining room, he suddenly saw someone—or maybe he thought of someone—he could borrow the money from. He went to talk to him. Perhaps he thought he’d only be gone a few minutes.”
“Then why didn’t he say something to his sister?” Honey asked reasonably. “And why didn’t he come back?”
“He didn’t tell his sister,” Trixie said slowly, “because he’s been trying to prove to her that he’s a success at last. I think, Honey, that he’s had lots of ideas over the years that haven’t worked out. Maybe they’ve quarreled about this before. And he didn’t come back tonight because—” She stopped.
“Go on.”
“I don’t know that I can,” Trixie confessed. “It all sounds so silly when I try to explain it. I was going to say that maybe the person he wanted to borrow the money from lived a long way away. So Mr. Trask got into his friend’s car and—“
“You’re right, Trixie,” Honey told her. “When you put it like that, it does sound peculiar. I think there must be some other explanation. I can’t imagine what it is, though. Let’s sleep on it, okay?” She pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes.
A little while later, Trixie lay in the upper bunk, staring up at the ceiling. She had tossed and turned. She had counted sheep and tried not to think about groaning foghorns, and ghostly galleons, and villainous-looking pirates—but it hadn’t worked. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get to sleep. Her brain was still too busy trying to solve the mystery of Mr. Trask’s disappearing trick.
Moving quietly, so as not to disturb Honey, who was breathing deeply, Trixie sighed and gave up. She switched on the little brass lamp over her head. Then she reached for her new Lucy Radcliffe novel, Mission in Munich, and opened it to the first page.
She read:
Chapter One
I was in danger. I knew it as soon as I moved to the head of the stairs. I should have sensed it sooner. After all, I had just found my partner bound and gagged in the musty linen closet on the second floor. Now he was powerless, and it was up to me to save us both.
I paused with my hand on the banister rail and listened. Someone—or was it something?—was moving about in the darkness below!
I could see my reflection in the mirror that hung on the wall beside me. A tall, slim girl, about eighteen years of age, with dark red hair and wide green eyes, stared back at me. Her complexion was flawless. Her long, golden dress hung gracefully from her white shoulders.
“Easy now, Lucy,” I whispered to her. “The fate of your country depends on your next move.”
Trixie sighed contentedly and settled herself into a more comfortable position against her pillow. “So much for Mart!” she muttered under her breath. “Lucy doesn’t either have zits!”
She read on:
All at once, as I peered through the gloom, I heard a door open softly. A man’s caped figure appeared suddenly before me. And the secret plans that I had been sent to Germany to defend with my life were tucked firmly under his arm.
Trixie gasped and sat up, almost bumping her head on the ceiling.
Lucy was not the only one to have seen a dim figure emerging from a doorway. Trixie, too, had seen the same thing earlier that evening. Why had she forgotten about it until now? Trixie and Honey had been coming down the stairs into darkness, just as Lucy Radcliffe had.
Trixie hadn’t seen a caped figure, however. She had seen a pirate. He had been hurrying out of a room that Trixie now knew was Mr. Trask’s office. Who was he, and what had he been doing there?
She kicked off the covers and hung way over the edge of the top bunk. “Honey!” she cried. “You’ve got to wake up! I’ve just thought of something else. Suppose Mr. Trask did have the money, after all. And suppose he had it hidden somewhere in his office. Someone could be trying to find it!”
Honey grunted and gazed bleary-eyed at the upside-down face dangling in front of hers. “Go to sleep, Trix,” she mumbled. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“But I want you to wake up,” Trixie insisted stubbornly. “This could be important. Earlier this evening, we saw someone sneaking out of Mr. Trask’s office, remember? Who was it?” Honey tried to blink the sleep out of her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I didn’t get a good look.”
Trixie jumped to the floor and reached for her clothes. “If I’m right,” she said excitedly, pulling on her jeans and warm turtleneck sweater, “then whoever it was could be trying to cause trouble for the Trasks. I think the would-be thief could have been the one who set the fire, too.”
Honey leaned up on one elbow. “But where are you going, and what’re you going to do?”
Trixie picked up her Bob-White jacket from the chair and threw it around her shoulders. “There may be a clue right now in that office. Besides, if the money is there, we ought to find it before someone else does. Anyway, I’m going to look.”
“Now?” Honey wailed. “You’re going to look now?”
“Oh, Honey,” Trixie answered, “don’t you see? Tomorrow may be too late.”
It didn’t take Honey long to dress, but she was still arguing as she and Trixie began tiptoeing silently down the stairs.
“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” she whispered. “We’ve already looked everywhere in that room once tonight, and we didn’t find anything. Oh, please, let’s go back to bed.”
“Lucy Radcliffe wouldn’t go back to bed,” Trixie replied obstinately. “She would just toss her gorgeous red hair back from her face, set her jaw firmly, and stick at it until the case was solved. Jeepers, Honey! How I wish I were a spy. Lucy leads such an exciting life.”
Honey tried to smother a yawn. “Then Lucy can have it,” she declared. “Everyone else is asleep, and I wish I were, t
oo.”
They had almost reached the bottom of the stairs when they stopped to listen. Around them, the inn was quiet and still. The polished brass ship’s lanterns, which hung at intervals along the walls, cast soft light and shadows on the stair treads beneath their feet.
Now that they were close to the mysterious dining room, Trixie thought she could smell the familiar fragrances of fresh-baked fruit pies and newly risen bread dough.
“If I close my eyes,” she whispered, “I can almost believe I’m back in our kitchen at Crabapple Farm.”
“If I close my eyes,” Honey retorted, “I can almost believe I’m back in the bottom bunk in our room at Pirate’s Inn—where I belong!”
Trixie grinned and paused on the last step. The dimly lit lobby was in front of them. Then, as she was about to hurry across it, she heard someone moving on the other side of the office door. She heard the soft click of a light switch.
Motioning Honey to silence, Trixie pressed herself against the wall and waited.
The doorknob turned without a sound, and a tall, skinny figure appeared in the opening.
The man wore a red scarf around his head, and a black patch over one eye. A stubble of gray beard covered his chin.
This time there was no doubt at all about his identity. The man was Weasel Willis.
Then Trixie’s heart skipped a beat when she saw what he was carrying in his hands.
It was a large metal cashbox.
The Crying Lady ● 12
IN THE NEXT MOMENT, everything seemed to happen at once.
In spite of Trixie’s warning, Honey took a quick step forward. She put out a hand, as if to stop him. Startled, Weasel looked up and caught sight of the two girls watching from the shadow of the stairs. At almost the same instant, the door to the dining room swung open.
“Weasel?” a man’s voice called. “Did you find it?” And Gaston, the chef, minus his white cap, stepped out to join them.
The sudden appearances seemed to be too much for Weasel. The cashbox dropped from his nerveless fingers. To Trixie’s astonishment, a shower of golden coins cascaded to the floor in a shimmering stream.
One of them rolled to the bottom of the stairs. Honey stared at it. “Golly,” she breathed. “They’re old gold coins!”
“They’re golden doubloons!” Trixie exclaimed. “Jeepers! They must be worth a fortune!”
Honey, however, had just taken a closer look. “Oh, Trix,” she said, “it isn’t gold at all. It’s—”
“—chocolate wrapped in embossed gold foil,” Weasel said wearily.
Trixie was beginning to feel a little like Alice in Wonderland. Peculiar things happened to her all the time, too.
“Chocolate?” she echoed. “You mean this is just chocolate?” She watched, disappointed, as Honey peeled off the “coin’s” outer covering. Weasel seemed amused. “Looks real, don’t it?” Trixie said nothing as she went to help him gather up the scattered candy. Of course they weren’t gold pieces. She could see that now. She couldn’t imagine how she had ever thought they were.
“It is very poor chocolate, because I do not make it myself,” Gaston announced grandly. “It is even worse chocolate now it has been dropped —plop!—on the carpet by the clumsy ox.”
All at once, Weasel looked angry. “You’d better watch who you’re calling an ox,” he snapped. “I tell you I couldn’t help it. You all popped out of the woodwork at me at once. It made me jump, is all.” He sighed. “This just hasn’t been my day. Not that it ever is.”
Gaston ignored him. “Monsieur Trask, he buys the chocolate,” he explained to the girls. “He stores it in his office for les enfants—the little children—who come to the inn. They like it because it looks like pirate money. Is it not so?” Trixie was about to agree fervently that at first glance it did indeed look like pirate money. Then she saw the Weasel staring at her.
“I’ll bet you thought I was about to sneak out of here with a load of cash, eh?” he said. “But the cashbox is just for effect, y’see. It’s kept in the dining room by the cash register.”
Trixie felt her face grow hot. But before she could answer, Honey said, “We didn’t think you were sneaking off with anything, Mr. Willis.”
“Of course not,” Trixie said quickly. She glanced longingly at the office. She and Honey would have to search it later. “My friend and I couldn’t sleep,” she added, “so we thought we’d get a breath of fresh air instead.”
Gaston frowned. “It is very late for two young ladies to be taking the fresh air,” he declared. “It is even late for the Weasel and myself to be working. But in the absence of Monsieur Trask, we have to prepare for the morning customers. But you girls should be getting the sleep of beauty.“
“My friend doesn’t need beauty sleep,” Trixie said hastily, pulling Honey toward the front door. “Anyway, we won’t be gone long. We’re sorry we startled you, Mr. Willis. Good night.”
A moment later, they stood on the top step, with the fog swirling around them once more.
“We lied, Trix,” Honey said. “We did think they were stealing—at least, I did.”
“I did, too,” Trixie replied, “but we couldn’t very well tell them so.”
Honey shivered. “How come they’re inside, where we want to be, and we’re outside, where it’s cold and damp?”
Trixie squeezed her friend’s arm. “I’m sorry. I told them the first dumb thing that came into my head.” She sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t have waked you up at all.”
“Of course you should,” Honey declared. “I’d never have forgiven you if you’d wandered off without me.” All the same, Trixie saw her trying hard to stifle another yawn.
“We’ll just wait for a couple of minutes until Gaston and Weasel have gone,” she said, “then we’ll go back inside, okay?”
“Back to bed?”
Trixie hesitated. “I guess if we can’t get into the office tonight, we’ll have to leave it till tomorrow,” she said reluctantly.
It seemed that Gaston was still concerned about them, for the front door opened again, and he hurried toward them.
“Sometimes I am slow on the intake—” he said.
“Doesn’t he mean uptake?” Trixie whispered to Honey.
“—but I still remember when I was a boy,” Gaston continued, stroking his mustache. “In those days, I liked to look at the surprises many times. And this, I tell myself, is what you have come to see again, no? For this you decide not to sleep. And this I understand now.”
“Surprise?” Honey said.
“But yes! Monsieur Trask’s big surprise. She is beautiful, is she not?”
Trixie frowned. “Do you mean Mr. Trask’s disappearing trick?”
“Of the vanishing trick, I know nothing,” he told them. “Of the ship, I know everything.” Trixie and Honey exchanged quick glances. Gaston looked from one to the other. “But what is this? Do you tell me this is not what you have come to see?”
“I’m not sure we know what you mean,” Honey said.
“But you do,” Gaston insisted. “The Weasel, he tells me everything. He should not have spoiled the big surprise, but he showed it to you.“
“I didn’t know Mr. Willis showed us anything,” Trixie replied, puzzled.
“But it is the galleon of which I speak,” Gaston said. “The Weasel, he tells me he repeats to you the old legend. Then, before your so-magnificent dinner, he sees you walking toward the cliff. He cannot resist it. He stands right here by the front door. He flips on the lights, so!” He reached to a set of switches on the outside wall. “And voilà! The Sea Fox, she sails again.”
Trixie stared through the fog toward the river, but from the inn, she could see nothing that lay below the cliff.
Honey seemed to feel as confused as Trixie. “I’m afraid I still don’t understand, Mr. Gabriel,” she said. “We saw the ship vanish—”
“But of course it did,” Gaston said patiently. “The ship, she is being painted now with fluorescent pai
nt. The lights, they are very special ones. They are black.”
Trixie was beginning to understand. “I’ve seen black lights used to illuminate some aquariums,” she told Honey.
“When these lights are turned on at night,” Gaston continued, “ah, what a mystification! The ship, she glows in the dark. When the lights are turned off—poof!—the galleon, she disappears. Monsieur Trask, he did not show you this?”
“Maybe he was going to just before he—he had to leave,” Trixie said slowly. “Oh, Mr. Gabriel, are you sure about this?”
“But of course I am sure,” Gaston answered.
“And Mr. Trask owns the ship?” Honey asked.
“Mais oui!” Gaston exclaimed. “He looked a very long time for the pirate ship. He decided he needed it to give the inn—”
“Atmosphere?” Trixie suggested.
“Exactly!” Gaston beamed at her. “So Monsieur Trask one day finds what he looks for. He finds a ship which has been used on the moving picture.”
“He got it from a movie lot?” Honey asked.
“The ship, she has sailed up and down, down and up, in the ocean,” Gaston told her. “The actors and actresses, they have swooned on the decks. They have climbed in the eagle’s nest—”
“Crow’s nest,” Trixie murmured.
“And when the movie is finished, Monsieur Trask, he buys this so-beautiful galleon for not very much money, yes?”
Trixie was fascinated, watching Gaston as he accompanied his remarks with wide, expressive movements of his hands. “What happened then?” she asked breathlessly.
“The galleon, she is brought all the way to the Hudson River,” Gaston said. “And then the workmen come. They start the work to make her look like the bad pirate boat. But the work, it is not yet finished. The ship is not yet ready to be illuminated all the time. But Monsieur Trask, he is very excited. He wishes to show his so-excellent sister how very clever he has been. This is his big surprise.”
“So that was it!” Trixie was thoughtful.
The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon Page 8