The Mystery at Mead's Mountain

haven’t a prayer of escaping from all of us.”
    Carl paced the room and again acted as though Trixie had not spoken. “If I let you go, you’d have the police swarming over this mountain so fast that everything would be ruined for sure. Why can’t anything go according to plan? First my grandson shows up asking questions, then you meddle to the point of causing almost certain disaster.” He turned on Trixie again and demanded, “I ask you, what should I do?”
    “I told you. Go to the police with us and turn yourself in,” Trixie repeated. “They’re much easier on people who turn themselves in.”
    “Ha! Don’t you think there’s nothing I would like better? But I can’t—Ellen’s life depends on that!” All at once, the energy and anger seemed to drain out of Carl. He slumped down on the cot and shook his head. “Poor Ellen. Poor, poor Ellen!”
    By now, Trixie was positive that Carl was crazy. “Wh-Who’s Ellen?” asked Honey.
    “Ellen Johnson, my daughter... Eric’s mother,” he muttered.
    “Eric’s mo—of course! Eric is your grandson!” Trixie cried.
    Carl continued to mutter. “When all this started, I told him to stay at school, but he’s as stubborn as his mother was at that age.”
    “I’m really mixed up, Mr. Stevenson,” said Honey. “I remember Eric saying that his mother was going to meet him here but had to go somewhere on business.”
    “Eric and his mother are very close. They’re all each other has. Other than me, and I’m just an old man stuck out in the woods with his art. I always found that art understood me a lot better than people did.
    So I guess I didn’t try to understand people. I thought if Eric found out the truth about his mother, he’d go crazy with worry. But I was wrong. He’s- torn up inside, but he’s acting mature on the outside and doing what has to be done.”
    “What is the truth about Ellen?” cried Trixie impatiently.
    Carl looked at her, puzzled. “I thought Eric told me you kids were detectives. You mean to tell me you haven’t got that figured out yet?”
    “Something awful must have happened to her, but I don’t know what,” Trixie admitted.
    “It’s worse than awful.”
    “What happened?” urged Honey.
    Carl sighed heavily. “About two weeks ago, I was peacefully carving on a wood-block print in my workshop. That’s the back half of my cabin I caught you snooping around.”
    Trixie couldn’t stop herself from blushing. “Anyway, I heard a knock at the door. Well, that’s pretty startling way out here. When I came out of the back room, my daughter was coming in the front door with two people wearing ski masks, really ugly masks. The tall one told me this wasn’t a social call: They had kidnapped poor Ellen in New York.”
    Honey sucked in her breath.
    “She was taking some new prints to an art dealer,” Carl continued. “They followed her and forced her to bring them to see me. Their terms were simple. They hold her hostage until I make them a counterfeit plate and a large number of counterfeit bills. They warned me against calling the police.”
    “How terrible!” exclaimed Trixie.
    “Is your daughter all right?” Honey asked.
    “I don’t know. She said she was okay when she was here. She even told me not to cooperate with their plans, but I have to, of course.”
    “Have you heard from her since then?” asked Honey.
    Carl shook his head. “They said they were going to stash her away in the woods somewhere. I’ve been searching the woods every free minute, but I haven’t seen a trace of her. The woods are so big, and there’re so many places a person could be....”
    He looked so beaten and helpless that Trixie was gradually losing her fear of him. “So that’s what that conversation was about,” she said. “I overheard you telling Eric to search the woods and not to call the police. I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean to be eavesdropping,” she added quickly.
    “That must have been the night I told Eric the truth about his mother. He was so concerned about her not telling him where she was going that I figured I owed him the truth.”
    “Do you know who the kidnappers are?” Honey queried.
    “No, they always wear ski masks. There’s a tall man with a harsh voice, and I can’t recall the short one ever speaking. I couldn’t even say if it’s a man or a woman. At first Eric thought your gang might be the kidnappers, because you asked so many questions,” said Carl, smiling vaguely.