The Black Jacket Mystery

though he himself might have to get along without one for some time. “We can t have him seen around in that black leather jacket, once he joins the B.W.G.’s,” he said soberly.
    “Yes!” Trixie nodded. “It was his black leather jacket that set me against him from the first, and lots of other people might feel the same way, because so many tough characters wear them.”
    “Well, at least we know some guys in black leather jackets can turn out okay even if they’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” Mart admitted.
    “And we know some others, like that Luke character, that don’t have much chance of changing. And that reminds me, Mr. Lytell saw him at the Sleepyside jail when the guards from the Wheeler place brought him in, and he identified Luke as the one who sold him Honey’s watch. So Dan didn’t do that, after all, any more than he broke into the clubhouse that other time.”
    “Well, it’s all past now, and I’m glad.” Honey smiled.
    “Now how about that big secret?” Mart teased.
    But Honey shook her head firmly. “Not till tonight!” And she stuck to that.
    It was a beautiful night. Besides the moonlight that bathed the frozen lake in soft blue light, there were lanterns strung everywhere, and just enough breeze to keep them swinging gently.
    Jim had rigged up a microphone, and when Dan recited the piece about the little leprechaun and Bobby dashed around in his costume pretending to be that fairy shoemaker, the Sleepyside crowd applauded till their hands hurt.
    Then it was Trixie and Honey’s turn to glide about the ice, as twin señoritas from sunny Mexico, while a phonograph record attached to Jim’s speaker system played “La Paloma.”
    And then the speed-skating competition began, and the boys from Sleepyside lined up against the boys from Round Point High.
    Mart had been wearing his clown outfit all evening, acting as general funnyman and master of ceremonies. He wanted to get into the race most of all, because the prize was the flooring from the antique saltbox house.
    “Gosh, hope I have time to change and get into the senior dash,” he confided to Trixie, but the bunting on the souvenir booth had blown loose, and he had to get a hammer and tacks and go to work on it.
    He finished it just before the senior group lined up to race, and there was no time to change.
    “All ready?” boomed Jim’s voice.
    And Mart made a mad dash to join the skaters. But the wide ruff around his neck blew up and got in front of his face before he ever got to the lineup. He didn’t see the twig half-embedded in the ice, and he went sprawling.
    It was a hard fall that he took, and he lay there for a full minute, trying to shake his brain clear.
    No one had noticed Mart’s fall, and before he could scramble to his feet the starter’s gun had barked and the race was on. He stood, dismayed, watching them speed past in a circuit of the lake, while the crowd cheered.
    Around they went the second time, and now Mart heard Trixie yell, “Dan!” and saw that Dan was well in the lead. He promptly forgot his own skinned knee and tom clown outfit as he joined his own voice to the yelling and shrieking.
    And it was Dan who came in first!
    And it was Dan who received the lumber company’s order for the historic flooring. He promptly turned it over to Jim and Trixie, as the co-presidents of the Bob-Whites.
    But the biggest excitement was yet to come. There was a loud fanfare as the chatter and applause for Dan died down, and the hi-fi blared out the Mexican national anthem. A big searchlight that had stood draped in the background was ran up quickly and tinned onto two seats which had been unaccountably empty.
    They were occupied now by two very scared, but very pretty, señoritas, dark-haired and big-eyed. They rose and bowed timidly as Jim announced on the public address system that the special guests were the Señoritas Lopez from San Isidro, Mexico, respectively Dolores and Lupe. It was for the benefit of their school library there that the carnival was being held, Jim announced, and now that the entertainment was almost over, the young ladies from Mexico would be glad to say hello to their friends.
    It was a happy ending to a gay event as the boys and girls gathered around the señoritas to shake their hands and listen, entranced, to their shy conversation. Obviously, the señoritas were pleased.
    “So that was the secret!” Trixie exclaimed as she and Honey dashed over to join the crowd.
    Honey