The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

same land is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A pity they never put up a statue to the greatest poet that ever lived.”
    “Dad always said if you want any information, ask a hansom cab driver or the driver of a taxicab,” Jim whispered to the others. “Shall we go to the zoo now?”
    “Gosh, yes!” Bob said.
    “Then, if it’s all right with the rest of you, we’ll go out of the park at Seventy-ninth Street, down Fifth Avenue, driver, and back into the park at the zoo.”
    “Right-o, laddie!” the old cabbie said and led off with his carriage.
    Trixie sat down in the second cab, next to Mart. She wriggled around, stood up again, looked back at the crowd around the pond, sat down again, then turned her body completely around.
    “What’s the matter with you?” Mart asked disgustedly. “Don’t you think the driver knows where he’s going? What is the matter?”
    “I don’t want to tell you. You’re always making fun of everything I say.”
    “Did you think you saw someone you knew back there?” Jim asked in a low voice.
    “Yes, Jim,” Trixie replied soberly. “Those men we saw at the antique shop window, the ones who followed us last night.”
    “Where?”
    “Over on the bridle path, parallel to this road. Can’t you see them? Oh, bother! They’re gone now.”
    The carriages had reached the edge of the park. The driver pulled up his horse and waited for a chance to slip alongside the Fifth Avenue traffic.
    Just as he saw his opportunity, just as he turned his horse south, two rough-looking men shot out of the park and caught his horse’s reins. The frightened animal reared, whinnying loudly. The abrupt stop almost tumbled the driver from his seat.
    Trixie and Jim rose in the carriage to help him, but as Trixie stepped from the cab, she was tripped. She stumbled and fell to the pavement. One of the strange men swooped down and tried to pry her purse from her arm. With a quick uppercut, Jim sent the man sprawling. Rubbing his jaw, he got to his feet and fled with his companion, just as a mounted policeman rode out from the park.
    In a few minutes, the officer had the traffic unsnarled, the bruised driver back in his seat, and everything under control.
    “It was those same men!” Trixie said emphatically, rubbing her elbow. “I told you I saw them in the park, Jim. The same ones who followed us last night. They’re thieves.”
    “What were they after?” the policeman asked.
    “My purse!” Trixie said indignantly.
    “I think not,” the old cab driver said. “Not a little girl’s purse. They have grander ideas than that, the rapscallions. They were like as not making a quick getaway from some job. They made off in a great hurry.”
    “They got into a car that was cruising along the Avenue. I saw them!” Ned said. “They brushed by our carriage and went north.”
    “The things that happen now in broad daylight!” the policeman said. “Everyone has sense enough to stay out of the park at night. But daylight! Are you all right, miss?”
    Trixie grimaced instead of answering.
    “Your knee is bleeding!” Honey cried, horrified. She used her handkerchief to try to stop the flow. “It’s a disgrace! Those men should be put in jail!” Honey looked at the policeman.
    “There’s little the officer can do,” the old driver put in. “Sure, they were a couple of crooks runnin’ away from a job. We just happened to be in the way. Shall I stop at the drugstore so you can get something for the young lady’s knee?”
    The policeman jotted down their names and where they lived, then moved on.
    “I think, instead, we’ll just go straight back to the apartment,” Brian told the driver. “I’ll look after your cuts there, Trixie. Some antiseptic and a bandage will do the trick.” Brian planned to be a doctor someday, and he was always eager to do first-aid work. “Does your knee hurt very much?”
    “Not too much,” Trixie sputtered, “but I’m mad clear through. I’ve ruined my brand-new pantyhose, and I’m afraid the afternoon is spoiled. I can’t go to the zoo looking like this! Please go without me, won’t you, Ned, Bob, Barbara?”
    “I don’t want to go anyplace till I’m sure you’re not badly hurt, Trixie,” Barbara declared firmly. “Heavens, bad things surely can happen in this city, as well as good things.”
    “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Barbara.”
    Dan helped her back into the carriage. “You can’t wear rose-colored glasses