The Gatehouse Mystery

light's always against you."
    "What is your hurry, anyway?" Tom demanded suspiciously. "You're in some sort of a scrape, Trixie Belden. I can tell."
    Trixie ignored him and nudged Honey. "Well, go ahead," she said. "This is as good a time as any for you to interview Tom."
    "Interview me?" Tom's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What am I, a celebrity or something?" He tipped his cap and bowed deeply. "Perhaps," he said, mincing his words, "you would like my autograph, ladies?"
    Honey giggled, rather nervously, Trixie thought. "Not that kind of interview, Tom. We're going to need a new chauffeur pretty soon. Brian and Mart told us that you would be perfect—just the kind of chauffeur we need. You'll like Regan, too. He's our groom. You'll share his apartment above our garage. It's really very nice, with a radio and television set and all." She stopped, her pretty face flushed with embarrassment. "Oh, Tom, what I'm trying to say is, will you accept? Please do!"
    "Wow!" Tom's eyes sparkled. "Gee, Honey, that job sounds like the answer to my prayers. Just say the word. When do I start?"
    Right after Labor Day, if you can," Honey let out a long sigh of relief. "I never thought interviewing would be that easy. I think I'm going to enjoy being Mother's secretary."
    The light had at last changed, and the cab was drawing up to the curb in front of the theater. Tom opened the door, and Trixie hastily clambered inside.
    "Crabapple Farm," Tom said to the driver. "The Belden place on Glen Road." He slammed the door and, touching the visor of his cap as though he were already a chauffeur, grinned at Trixie.
    She waved to him and Honey and settled tensely back on the cushion. It seemed like hours before the cab had threaded its way through the crowded section of the village. Then Trixie leaned forward.
    "I've changed my mind," she said to the driver. "I want to go to the Manor House. It's the driveway next to ours. You can just leave me off at the mailbox. The Wheelers' mailbox, you know."
    "I know it well," the taxi driver said, stepping on the gas as they left the town behind. "And I'm glad you don't want me to take you up that hill. The last time I tried to make the turn by the garage I clipped the heads off a few hollyhocks." He chatted on and on, predicting an isolated life for the Wheelers when winter set in and the steep driveway would be a sheet of ice.
    But Trixie didn't listen. She sat tensely on the backseat, thinking. Someone deliberately cut the telephone wires so that he wouldn't be disturbed. Even with their eyes glued to their TV, Celia and the cook would know if the phone rang and rang, for there was an extension bell in the servants' sitting room on the third floor. No matter how noisy the wrestling matches might be, Regan would hear the phone in the suite over the garage, because it was on a table right by his television set.
    Someone had carefully cut the wires so that no one could telephone to find out why Jim hadn't appeared at the Cameo.
    Therefore, something had happened to Jim!
    Trixie closed her eyes. Dick and Jim on that lonely Glen Road! Jim, who had previously examined the signature on Dick's letter of recommendation and found traces of carbon. Jim, with his redheaded hot temper. Jim was probably thinking, "This fellow tried to make fools of all of us. He took advantage of little Bobby's trusting nature. He was mean and nasty to Trixie, who rightly suspected him all along. I've a good mind to blacken his other eye for him."
    Trixie moaned inwardly. Jim was so honest it would have been hard for him to disguise the fact that he suspected Dick of forgery, if not of robbery. Try as he probably did, he must have said something, or let Dick know by the expression on his freckled face that he had an idea who the midnight prowler was. And then —and then—
    "Here we are," the taxi driver said. "Seventy-five cents. Sure you can make your way up that hill in the dark?"
    Trixie gave him the money and hopped out. "I know it better than I do my own face," she said. "I practically live here." She closed the door and started off at a run. Halfway up the driveway, she stopped. The television on the third floor of the house and Regan's
    TV set in the garage were blaring. From where she stood, it looked as though not a single light was burning on the first and second floors.
    Someone with a tiny flashlight was climbing stealthily up the side steps to the screen door of the wide veranda.
    Trixie left the graveled driveway