The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

knowledge of the shady part of this town paid off,” Dan said. “When you didn’t come back for such a long time, we started to worry. First we thought you’d been in a street accident. Then we went downstairs and asked Mr. Hawkins, the doorman, if you had said anything when you left.”
    “When he told us you hadn’t, we really were scared,” Diana s'aid.
    “Then he remembered you’d asked him for a piece of paper to copy something you’d written on the phone book in the booth,” Diana went on. “Have you ever looked inside the cover of a telephone book in a public booth? Everyone writes something there—telephone numbers, addresses....”
    “How could you tell what I’d written? It was only the number of the place where they told me to meet them.”
    “I haven’t tutored you in math for nothing,” Jim said. “I recognized the funny figure four you always make. That was enough for Dan. He knew exactly where you’d gone, and he knew you’d be sure to run into danger.”
    “It was near the neighborhood where I lived after my mother died,” Dan put in. “I know every inch of it, and it’s bad. The joint where you went is a place a ‘fence’ operates. A fence disposes of stuff thieves take to him.”
    Dan paced up and down the room nervously. “So then we called the police, and they came right away. That ride in the squad car was the longest ride I ever took in my life.”
    “It was for me, too,” Jim declared. “Trixie, I’ll never forget how I felt when we found you!”
    Trixie held Jim’s hand tightly. With her other hand she caught Dan’s hand. For a long time she didn’t speak.
    “Three of them!” she finally said. “That was what was so puzzling and why we were never able to tell the police exactly what they looked like. Big Tony was the tall one of the pair who followed us. Pedro was the one who pretended to be a Peruvian. He talked to us at the United Nations.”
    “And at the Museum of Natural History!” Honey added. “Trixie, we never trusted him. And what about the other man, the one with the scar across his eye?”
    “Blinky, yes.” Trixie hid her face. “He’s so horrible-looking with his big bald head and squinting eye—” ‘Great-headed man, with blinking eye’!” Mart cried. “It’s Blinky to a T!”
    Trixie jumped from her chair. “It is! It is! Where’s my purse? That policeman gathered up my things from the floor and gave me my purse. Where is it? Oh, yes... here’s the prophecy. What else did that Mexican woman say after the line about the TV studio? Here it is:

“A lonesome journey, gleaming gun,
Foolish girl, what have you done?

    “ ‘Foolish girl,’ ” Trixie repeated sadly. “That’s me, all right!”

Lost Forever • 16

    SINCE THE IOWANS had to leave the next afternoon, Trixie insisted she was well enough to carry out their original plan for dinner on the plaza at Rockefeller Center that evening. Her experience with the men that morning had left her unnerved, though. Only one good thing emerged from it: The police knew now exactly who the men were who had been pursuing Trixie. They still did not know why. Mr. Wheeler had promised to take the small Incan idol to the police the next day, after the visitors left, so they might try to discover its attraction for the thieves.
    The telephone rang. Mr. Wheeler answered it.
    “Yes, Joe. Say, thanks for the way you put all these kids back on the right track. If your advice had only been taken.... You should have been around here this morning. Miss Trask and I went through several bad hours. Some of the young people did, too. Sure, you might know it was Trixie. Hold on; I’ll let her tell all about it. It’s Dr. Reed, Trixie... Trixie, where are you?”
    “As soon as she heard you say ‘Joe’ she beat it to her room, sir,” Mart said. “I don’t wonder that she doesn’t want to talk to him. He told us we might get into trouble, and she’s ashamed to tell him she went off by herself. Let me talk to him. I’ll tell him if you don’t want to.”
    “No, thanks, Mart.” Mr. Wheeler smiled. “I’ll tell him. Your version might be too vivid. Trixie has learned her lesson.”
    “Maybe she has this time,” Miss Trask said doubtfully. “We always think so till something else happens.” So Mr. Wheeler told Dr. Reed about the events of the morning. He hadn’t finished talking when Trixie came back into the room and asked to say something. Honey’s father handed her the