The Hudson River Mystery

suits....
    Before Trixie could catalog anything else, someone reached out to trip her and Honey. The girls promptly fell headlong into a large, sturdy fishing net. Thea’s book went flying. Honey shrieked, but Trixie was too confused to make a sound. The net was drawn tighter, tighter around them.
    ”I’ve had enough of you pesky girls,” Thea snarled venomously.
    Trixie couldn’t believe her ears. What was happening to them? She struggled to look around, but the net was forcing her into a little ball. The two divers were each holding an end of the net. The one who had a moustache was standing directly over Trixie. Water drops from his wet suit fell on her.
    ”All right, boys,” Thea was saying, ”you can put our latest haul into the car.”
    The two men heaved up their load and started shoving it into the backseat of the silver car. Trixie and Honey twisted and turned, but to no avail. Just before the door was slammed shut on them, Trixie finally noticed another figure standing nearby. It was Pat Bunker, an astonished look on his face.
    One of the divers said something that Trixie couldn’t make out.
    The front door of the car opened. Trixie squirmed until she saw the back of Thea in the driver’s seat. The engine was started.
    ”Never mind,” said Thea with another dry laugh. ”This one had outlived its usefulness to me, anyway. We’ll nab another one tonight. Now, hand me that big rock over there. I’ll just put it over the accelerator,” she muttered.
    The motor began racing. Thea started getting out of the car.
    Trixie heard the car being shifted into gear and then the front door slamming shut. The car was in motion—and without a driver! The next thing she heard was a gigantic splash... and the sound of Honey crying, harder than Trixie had ever heard her cry before.

Danger on the Hudson ● 16
    GLUB... GLUB GLUB. The car was making strange sucking noises—much louder than Honey s uncontrollable sobbing.
    ”We’re as good as dead!’’ Honey wailed. ”She—she sent us over the cliff in her car! We’re going to d-d-drown!”
    ”Honey!” Trixie spoke sharply to the quaking form beside her. ”She’s not going to get rid of us that easily. Now, calm down while we figure out how to get out of here.” Trixie had no idea of where the confidence in her voice was coming from—she herself was so frightened that she was nearly suffocating with terror.
    She tried to raise her head and found that her movement was severely restricted. ”The first job is to get loose from this net,” she said determinedly. ”Come on, see if you can unravel yourself from your end.”
    Straining against the steellike web was of absolutely no use, Trixie soon found out. She decided to save her strength for the efforts ahead and instead use her cunning to extricate herself.
    Her decision paid off. In a matter of seconds, she had located the ends of the net, tied fairly loosely together. Quickly she untied the knot and burst free.
    Squirming around in the cramped backseat, she managed to unroll the net from herself and a still weeping Honey.
    Trixie grabbed her friend by the shoulders. ”We have no time for bawling. We have to work fast! I remember Brian, or maybe it was Mart, saying something... about it taking several minutes—I think that’s what they said—for a car to completely sink.” Gulping, she stared at the brown water seeping in through the floor. ”Now, if I can just remember what else it was they said....”
    ”Trixie!”
    ”I’m thinking!” Trixie sat up and caught a glimpse of something in the front seat. She stretched forward, then screamed, ”Oh, Honey, look—sharks!”
    ”Where?” Honey cried hysterically.
    ”No, not sharks—fins. Look, look right there, Honey! It’s a couple of black plastic fins—they’re huge! I wonder where she got them. Yipes, and I was just starting to consider that they might have been phony! Oh, Honey, I think—I think I’m on the verge of cracking this case! Bunker! And that diver with the mustache—”
    It was Honey’s turn to speak sternly. ”You’ve got to concentrate on getting us out of this car! You can crack your case after we’ve saved our skins! Now—please, please remember what else Brian said.”
    For once, Trixie gave in without an argument. The water was up to the girls’ knees by this time. Apparently, the front end was going down faster than the back end.
    ”There were two methods of escaping from cars going underwater,” she