The Black Jacket Mystery

that was in it. I was comin’ to look around the ground back there to see if maybe it fell out of my pocket.”
    “There’s no sign of it, Mr. Maypenny,” Trixie told him.
    “Guess I won’t waste my time, after all,” he said with a sigh. “But I was hopin' against hope it’d be there and the money still in it. Guess I knew better all along.”
    “Maybe Dan has seen the tramp or whoever it was that did it! Did you ask him if there’s been anybody around?” Trixie asked quickly.
    Mr. Maypenny shook his head slowly. “Thought I might ask him this morning, but when I got up, he was gone.”
    “He wasn’t at school,” Trixie said, frowning. “I guess he decided to work all day in the preserve, as long as you wouldn’t feel well enough to get around.”
    “I kinda hoped that’s where he was, but when I went out to the barn to see if he took old Spartan, the horse was still there. And I found this.” He handed Trixie a tom sheet of paper.
    There were only a few words scribbled in pencil on it. “I won’t be back. Don’t look for me. Dan.” And down in one comer, in small letters, as if in an afterthought, he had written, “Thanks.”
    Trixie stared at it without speaking for a long moment. Then she handed the note back to Mr. Maypenny. He tucked it into the pocket of his high-necked, old-fashioned sweater. “Looks like he’s run away, doesn’t it?” Mr. Maypenny said with a sigh. “Poor little lad!”
    Trixie nodded sympathetically. “It’s a shame, Mr. Maypenny. He is your grandson, isn’t he?”
    “Nope. Dan’s no kin of mine. I let him work here to oblige a friend of mine.”
    “Do you mean Regan?” Trixie asked him, point-blank.
    The old man hesitated. Then he said with a shrug, “Can’t see why we should keep it quiet any longer, now the boy’s gone. Regan’s the one.”
    “But why was it such a big mystery?” Trixie frowned. “And what relation is he to Regan?”
    “Dan’s mother was Regan’s only sister. They were raised together in the orphanage, and she ran off to get married. Tim Mangan was killed in a car accident, and she raised the boy alone. Regan had lost track of his sister till the day he got word that she was dead and her boy was in a street gang fight and headed for reform school.”
    “So he asked Moms and Miss Trask what to do!” Trixie supplied quickly.
    “That’s right. Judge said he’d give the lad a chance to straighten out, if Regan would give him a home and work, so—” he paused with a sigh “—we tried your mom’s idea that working out in the preserve would do him good, give him a slant on things other than gangs and fighting.”
    “But why couldn’t he work at Wheelers’ helping in the stables, instead?” Trixie knitted her brows.
    “Regan figured Mr. Wheeler might not like the idea of having a boy like that around with his youngsters. Regan thought this was the best plan.”
    “I don’t know.” Trixie thought it over. “Maybe Mrs. Wheeler might have felt sort of funny about it, but I should think Mr. Wheeler would know Honey and Jim better than to think Dan could have made them do anything wrong.”
    “I guess poor Regan leaned back a little, at that,” Mr. Maypenny admitted with a solemn shake of his head. “But it’s better to be safe than sorry, I say. And look how the boy’s acted!”
    Trixie frowned. “All he’s done is run away, and maybe he didn’t want to do that!”
    “You’re forgetting Honey’s watch he found and sold,” Mr. Maypenny reminded her. He put his hand to the bandage on his head. “And other things that have happened.”
    “Maybe he didn’t do all of them,” Trixie said quietly. “Have you seen anybody around lately wearing those silly cowboy boots like Dan’s, only brown ones instead of black?”
    “Can’t say I have. What’s on your mind?” he said with surprise.
    Trixie explained about the brown polish on the clubhouse table, the large-size boot marks, and the almost new black jacket she had seen and Dan had tried to conceal.
    Through the recital, old Mr. Maypenny stared at her, doubtfully at first, then with growing excitement. He interrupted her as she was telling about hearing a step up in the attic of the cabin the night before.
    “That’s it! I knew I heard a strange voice while I was lying there! I thought I was dreamin’ it, on account of the bump I got on my head, but I guess it was real.”
    “What did you hear?” Trixie asked eagerly.
    The gamekeeper thought it