The Mystery at Mead's Mountain

Trask—never interferes unless she’s needed.”
    “You girls are hopping around like Mexican jumping beans,” Brian said. “What have you been up to?”
    “Oh, nothing,” said Honey with an elegant wave of her hand. “It’s just that Trixie has done exactly what she told us she was going to this morning.”
    “Corroborated the counterfeiter?” asked Mart. “As with other magic tricks, I’ll believe this one when I see it!”
    “Don’t kid, Mart,” begged Honey. “She really did find the counterfeiter—that is, the counterfeiter found us, only it’s much more complicated than just that— Oh, you’d better explain, Trixie. I’m too excited!”
    The Bob-Whites all listened in silence while Trixie spun her tale. “So you see,” she concluded, “we just have to help Carl get his daughter back and catch the kidnappers.”
    “You are so gullible, Trixie!” Mart exploded. “Anyone can tell you a sob story and have you fall for it, no questions asked.”
    “What do you mean?” Honey demanded. “Don’t you want to help?”
    “Sure, if what Carl says is true. But did you ever stop to look at his story from any other viewpoint?”
    “Like what?” asked Trixie.
    “Like you’ve caught him red-handed and what else can he do?” suggested Mart. “He knows you’ll go to the police if he lets you go, but he can’t keep you there because he also knows your ‘snoopy brothers’ will come to your rescue. His only chance is to escape with the evidence. But how can he do that with you there? Of course, he could kill you, but that’s messy, and it still wouldn’t stop us from coming to look for you. No, the only answer is to buy time.”
    Brian took over then. “And the best way to do that is to hand you a real tearjerker. Get you out of the cabin, so he can pack up and get out of there. Or better still, send you on a wild-goose chase, all the while thinking that you’re helping solve a mystery.” Trixie sank down onto the fireplace hearth. “Are you saying that I might have let the criminals get away?”
    “Worse than that,” Mart answered. “You might have helped them get away!”
    Honey spoke up firmly. “You didn’t see that poor man, Mart. He looked so sad and broken—not at all like the desperate, cunning criminal you make him out to be.”
    “That’s right,” said Trixie, brightening. “Everything he said made sense and fit in with all of our clues. Like that conversation I overheard. And the funny way that Eric acted the night he bought us all dinner. And what Eric said about his mother leaving that first day, and—”
    “Hold it,” cut in Mart. “What I want to know is where all the things that keep happening around the lodge fit in?”
    “If Carl is so nice,” argued Di, “then why is he trying to play ghost and scare us away?”
    Trixie and Honey looked at each other and said nothing.
    “You did check Carl’s boot print, didn’t you?” prompted Brian.
    “I—I guess we were so excited about everything else that we, uh, forgot,” Trixie answered.
    Mart groaned in total exasperation.
    Trixie didn’t blame him. “It was kind of dumb of me not to check all the angles,” she said, flopping into a chair. “Some detective I’m going to be.”
    “You’re not such a bad detective,” said Jim thoughtfully. “Look, if Carl was just handing you a line to buy getaway time, there’s nothing we can do about it now, except report it to the police. But if his story is true, then we have a responsibility to keep our promise and show up at the pond tonight. And I vote for acting on the assumption that it is true.”
    “So do I,” declared Honey.
    “The only thing is,” Trixie said, “we can’t all go down there. That would let the kidnappers know that we’re onto them.”
    “I don’t get it,” said Di.
    “I can tell by the light in Trixie’s eyes that she knows something we don’t,” Brian said to Di.
    “Just this,” Trixie explained. “The kidnappers have to be someone here at the lodge. They saw him talking to Eric here at the lodge, and they told Carl they’d be keeping an eye on him. Only someone staying at the lodge could do that.”
    “She’s right!” Honey shivered. “To think we’ve been staying with kidnappers!”
    “If all the Bob-Whites, who are supposed to be in charge of the party tonight, suddenly disappear,”
    Trixie went on, “the kidnappers are going to know something is up.”
    “She’s right again,” said Mart. “Will