The Mystery at Mead's Mountain

and hot chocolate for you, and I’ve got a fire going in the fireplace in your suite. Come on!”
    When Trixie started to follow him, Mart grabbed her arm and pointed to her suitcase still sitting on the floor. “You’re on your own now, toots.” Trixie made a great show of struggling with her suitcase.
    “Let’s get you settled so you can tackle these mountains in the morning,” Pat was saying as she caught up to the group. “I’ve put you in suite twenty-three at the end of the hall. There’re two dorm rooms with bunk beds in each. Both of them open onto a small balcony overlooking the mountain. There’s another bedroom for you,” he told Miss Trask. “You have a small kitchen, although Mr. Wheeler said you’d be eating most of your meals in the restaurant. A sliding glass door opens out onto the pool. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
    “I’m sure we will. It sounds very nice,” Miss Trask answered.
    “Especially the bed part,” yawned Mart.
    “Mr. O’Brien?” Trixie fell into step with him as they walked down the hall.
    “Pat, please.”
    “Pat, on the way up here I saw some movement alongside the road. The others thought it must have been the wind, but it looked like a person to me. All I could see was the back and what looked like long white hair.”
    Pat just stared at her for a moment, and then he chuckled. “You’re not the first person to say you’ve seen a figure with long white hair in these mountains, especially on nights like tonight, when the snows, winds, and imaginations are active. You mean you don’t know what you saw?”
    Trixie shook her head.
    “The ghost of Thomas Mead, of course,” Pat said, with a tiny flicker of a smile.
    Di stopped short. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” she asked nervously.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Pat answered. “A great many people in this area do believe it. And the story makes for a lot of fun.”
    “To Trixie, ethereal beings are not fun; they’re—” Mart, noticing the glare Trixie was giving him, decided not to continue.
    At the end of the hall, Pat put down the suitcase and fumbled for his key ring. “You should have plenty of privacy in this section of the lodge,” he told them. “The only other people near you are a young honeymooning couple, and we don’t see them too often.”
    Finally he got the door open. The Bob-Whites peered in and saw what normally would have been an inviting, cozy room. In the center was a circular fireplace. Surrounding it were gold and brown overstuffed chairs. The floor was covered with a thick rust carpet, and the walnut-paneled walls were decorated with pictures of mountain scenes.
    But, where the fire Pat had promised should have been, there were only ashes floating in a pool of water. And the patio door was standing wide open, allowing the wind to blow the cold air and the falling snow inside.
    Pat looked genuinely distressed as he rushed over and closed the patio door. “I don’t know what to say! Who could have done this?” he asked, turning helplessly to the Bob-Whites.
    Trixie looked alertly around the room. “Whoever did it just did it recently,” she answered.
    “How do you know?” demanded Pat.
    “Well, the room is still a little warm, and there isn’t that much snow on the rug.”
    “That’s true,” said Pat. “But how could they have gotten in? The door was locked.”
    “The patio door wasn’t locked when we got here,” Trixie pointed out. “Maybe it wasn’t before, either.”
    “I didn’t double-check it when I readied the room,” Pat admitted, still looking dazed.
    Trixie headed for the patio door, and Jim followed her. Outside the door, the snow was totally smooth except where the wind had blown it into drifts. “Hmm, no footprints. No one but a ghost could have come through this door,” observed Trixie.
    Then, by the glare of the floodlights, she saw something as startling as the scene in their room. “What in the world— The swimming pool is outside! Jeepers, who would want to swim outdoors in weather like this? Do you suppose they haven’t finished the roof yet, Jim?”
    “No, I think it’s supposed to be that way. See the steam rolling off the pool? That means the water has been heated and is probably very comfortable.”
    “Sure, it’s like a Finnish sauna,” Mart informed them as he came out on the patio. “You roll in those large snowdrifts next to the pool and then jump in. Only in Finland, you jump into a natural hot spring.