The Mystery at Mead's Mountain

mean to be short-tempered. I didn’t sleep very well last night. The storm bothered me.” He held the door open for her.
    Trixie felt a flash of guilt. It wasn’t nice of her at all. It wasn’t because she wanted to help that she was going out in the snow.
    They ran out to the woodpile around the corner of the building, where the wood was piled high under a protective roof. As Eric stooped over to pick up some logs, Trixie glanced down at the footprints in the snow. There were her own—small, ornamented with four-pointed stars. And there were Eric’s beside hers, much larger... and ornamented with four-pointed stars, too!
    “Hold your arms out,” Eric commanded.
    “What?” Trixie had been so intent on the footprints she’d forgotten all about the wood.
    “Haven’t you ever carried wood before? Hold out your arms!”
    Eric piled the wood into her outstretched arms, and she hurried back inside and dumped the wood onto the fireplace hearth. As she brushed the bark chips from her sweater, she shook her head in answer to the question in Honey’s eyes. “Four-pointed stars,” she whispered.
    Eric came back in and arranged the logs on the pile of kindling in the fireplace. “Sorry I was kind of short with you out there, Trixie,” he said. “I do appreciate your help. I guess I’m disappointed because the weather is going to cut down on the time I can spend in the woods today.”
    “Do you think the storm is going to let up at all?” asked Honey.
    “It has already,” said Eric. “Matter of fact, Katie was saying she thought it might clear up by lunch, so that she and Miss Trask could go into town to do the shopping for the party.”
    “Come on, Honey, we’d better get back and wake up the others,” said Trixie. “We have a lot of work to do before the party, ourselves.”
    On their way back to the suite, Honey declared, “That really clears Eric of everything. He’s not the ghost, and he didn’t take my watch or Wanda’s quarters.”
    “There’s still something odd about him,” replied Trixie. “But I think I know who the ghost might be.”
    “Who?” asked Honey, not at all surprised that Trixie was already on the track of someone new.
    “Carl. He knows we’re detectives. He even warned us that being detectives here was unhealthy.”
    “Maybe it’s time we took heed of that warning,” sighed Honey as she opened the door to their suite.
    The others were all up and dressed, sitting around the fire. “Ah, our early-morning peripatetics have come to roost,” Mart said. “Feel like journeying to breakfast?”
    “Someone should call the police and pawnshop,” decided Miss Trask, “to let them know the watch has been returned.”
    “I will,” volunteered Trixie. “Eric says you’re going to town to do the party shopping with Katie this afternoon.”
    “Does Katie think the snow will let up by then?” asked Miss Trask. “Maybe I should go talk to her.”
    “Why don’t you do that now?” Honey suggested. “We’ll make our phone calls and meet you in the restaurant in about ten minutes.”
    After Miss Trask left, Trixie told the others about Eric’s footprints.
    “Well,” said Brian, “I guess that takes care of Eric. But someone is still playing ghost around here, and I’d like to know who it is and why.”
    Di spoke up. “A lot of the evidence is beginning to point to Pat.”
    “He’s so nice, though. It hardly seems possible,” said Trixie.
    “You’re just saying that because last night he said you were a good detective,” gibed Mart. “I think we should check his footprints.”
    “Okay, but right now I’d better make those phone calls, so we won’t be late meeting Miss Trask,” said Trixie, reaching for the phone.
    Trixie called the police, and then she called Pawnbroker Joe and told him the watch had been found at the lodge. She didn’t say that Rosie had taken it and let the talkative pawnbroker assume that Honey had simply misplaced it.
    “I’m right glad to hear that,” he said. “I was worried about your little friend thinking Vermont was full of crooks. It seems like we’re getting more and more hoodlums up here every day. A body even has to lock his doors at night now. It’s shameful. That’s just what I was telling the police when they came here to warn me about the counterfeit money this morning.”
    Trixie tried to interrupt to ask him what he was talking about, but his flow of words didn’t stop. “You know, in my business you meet