The Black Jacket Mystery

night.
    She decided not to say any more to Honey or anyone. She would just keep an eye on Regan when he came back, and if she got any evidence that he was up to something, she would tell Moms and Dad right away. “But I still hope I’m all wrong,” she told herself.
     

Bobby’s See-crud • 5
     
    YOU DON’T WANNA find my skate.” Bobby sniffed indignantly. “You’re not lookin’!” He pulled at his sister’s sleeve.
    “Oh, Bobby, stop pestering! Were helping the boys so we can all go skating together. We’ll be finished in a few minutes, and then we’ll look for your skate!” Trixie was currycombing Strawberry while Honey attended to sleek Starlight in the next stall. Mart and Brian were measuring out the horses’ next meal and cleaning the leather.
    “We have several of the antique sale posters laid away in the clubhouse,” Brian called out to Trixie as he went past. “Why can’t we use the reverse side of them for our carnival announcements?”
    “Swell idea,” Trixie agreed at once.
    Mart glanced over the top of the next stall at Honey, working hard grooming Starlight. “When is Jim due home? Did he have any idea?”
    “Late tomorrow, he said,” Honey answered cheerfully. “Won’t he be thrilled when he hears all the plans we’ve made?”
    “Yeah, especially when he finds out he’s booked to draw posters, help build the booths, run off the programs on the school printing press—if he can get permission, of course—and—” Mart was ticking off the items on his fingers.
    “—and see that certain parties don’t hand him all the jobs and just go around talking big about how hard they are working!” Trixie finished the sentence saucily.
    “Where did Bobby go?” Brian asked suddenly as he was getting ready to take care of Thunderer’s cut leg. “Hey, Bobby! Where are you?” he called. Then he put aside the bandages to stride outside and look around.
    Trixie groaned. Instead of helping with the horses, a job she really liked, she should have been keeping an eye on Bobby. She hurried outside to Brian.
    He was looking up and down the driveway for Bobby. “Here.” She tossed Strawberry’s currycomb to him. “I’ll try the house. He may have decided to mooch some cookies at the kitchen.”
    Trixie hurried up toward the Manor House, calling impatiently first in one direction and then the other, “Bobby! Where are you?”
    She was about halfway to the Manor House when she saw the little boy come around the comer from the rear, with Miss Trask on one side and Celia on his other. He was carrying a skate in one hand while he munched on a fistful of cookies from his other hand.
    He waved gaily. “Hi, Trixie! We founded my skate!” he called and came running.
    The gray-haired housekeeper and Celia halted to watch him greet Trixie, and then they turned and went back to the house with a farewell wave.
    “Tom fixed it Celia says it was in the kitchen now can we go skating?” Bobby ran the words all together.
    “I guess so, if it doesn’t snow too hard,” Trixie told him, holding firmly to his wrist as they went back to the barn. “Let’s see what Brian says.”
    The work was finished, and they quickly decided that half an hour on the ice would do them all a lot of good. They set out, stopping only a few minutes at the clubhouse to get their skates.
    It was quite a distance into the woods before they would come to the lake. They went single file through the evergreen forest to the sloping hillside that sheltered one end of the lake from most of the wind. There was a good spot among the rocks where they always built a campfire, and the boys went to work at once to get one started.
    The ice was smooth and clean. Honey put her skates on at once and checked to see that there were no broken twigs embedded in the ice in the little cove where she planned to take Bobby for his skating lesson.
    Trixie and Mart paced off a length of shoreline along which Mart intended to work up his speed. They marked it with a strip of red cloth at each end, and Mart began practicing, while Brian timed him with the watch.
    Trixie was feeding the campfire with some wood she had gathered when Honey started to the cove, leading Bobby by the hand.
    “You can come n’ watch, Trixie,” Bobby called to his sister as he skated more or less steadily at Honey’s side.
    “All right. You practice awhile, and I’ll be with you soon,” she called, waving them on.
    She was still feeding the fire carefully a