The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

realized this, his attitude changed again. He immediately became apologetic. “Forgive me!” he said with seeming abjectness. “I become too excited when I know what bad people in my country are doing. You have made a mistake, miss. I bid you good-bye.”
    “I don’t know what was the matter with him,” the clerk at the booth said in amazement. “He got pretty excited when he was here before, looking over my stock. I think he may be a little....” She twirled her finger in a circle in front of her temple.
    “Crazy?” Trixie asked.
    The woman nodded her head.
    “He must be,” Trixie agreed. She and Honey turned to go back up the stairs. “Why did you hiss at me like that to warn me?” Trixie asked quickly.
    “I didn’t trust him from the minute I saw him. Trixie, he wants your statue for some reason or other. Don’t ask me why I think so. I don’t believe, though, that you’ve seen the last of him.”
    “Well, the plot thickens, doesn’t it?” Trixie mused. “I must have a pretty valuable little statue on my hands. Everyone said I was silly to buy it, didn’t they? Even you said so, Honey.”
    “You didn’t think it was valuable yourself when you bought it. Remember? You just said it was so ugly you wanted it. I have to admit it has turned out to be interesting. Isn’t it about time for us to meet the others over at the cafeteria?”
    “Pretty soon. I’m tired, though, after that encounter with that man. Honey, he would have knocked me down and taken my statue away from me if there hadn’t been a crowd around. There he goes now, down that corridor. Heavens, Honey, his back looks so familiar. Do you possibly think—no—it couldn’t be! He’s about the same size, though....”
    “Are you thinking he’s that scar-faced man who tried to knock you down when the horse shied yesterday?”
    “I’m thinking that very thing.”
    “But that man was years older and so shabby. He had another man with him, too. Remember, Trixie? They were both following us home the night before, too. This man doesn’t have a scar. I think he may be some wealthy importer. He had an educated way of talking, too.”
    “Maybe so. It’s all peculiar. Let’s tell Jim about it when we see him and ask him what he thinks.”
    “You always say ‘ask Jim,’ ” Honey said mischievously. “Even if he is my brother, I don’t think he’s all-wise. We’ll ask all the Bob-Whites what they think.”
    Trixie blushed to the roots of her sandy hair. She hadn’t any idea that her complete reliance on Jim was so obvious.
    “Of course we’ll ask all of them. Brian’s pretty smart, too. You think so, don’t you, Honey?”
    It was Honey’s turn to blush now. “Brian’s the oldest Bob-White,” she said, as though that explained everything. “There they are now, both of them, Brian and Jim, and all the rest of the crowd. See them going down the line over there at the cafeteria? Yoo-hoo!” Brian called back, and Jim waved. Everyone in line smiled as the two girls, faces flushed and eyes dancing, hurried to catch up with their friends.

Break-In ● 7

    THE MOST EXCITING thing happened!” Trixie burst out as she put her tray on the table near the others.
    “Oh, Trixie, you should have been with us!” Barbara’s words spilled over one another. “I never saw anything so wonderful in all my life. I hadn’t the slightest idea of what the United Nations—”
    “I just have to tell you first what happened to us—” Trixie hadn’t heard a word Barbara had said.
    “Barbara’s right. Gosh, what we’ll have to tell when we go back home! There was this man in the council room at—” Bob almost spilled his glass of milk in his eagerness to talk.
    “Wait till I tell you about the man we saw!” Trixie interrupted.
    Brian stood up and raised his hand for silence. He was laughing so hard he could hardly talk. “One at a time! No one can tell what either of you is talking about. Trixie will burst a blood vessel if you don’t let her tell what she’s trying to tell. Is it okay if she speaks first, Barbara?”
    Reluctantly, Barbara nodded.
    So Trixie told about the sleek-haired man and his interest in her Incan idol, of his insistence that she hand it over to him, and of her determination to hold on to it.
    “Trixie has a ‘won’t’ of iron when she makes up her mind,” Honey said. “I don’t know what might have happened if there hadn’t been a crowd of people around us. That man was so oily, he was