The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

were listening—trying to hear what we were saying. Didn’t you notice that when we left, they moved over to the window of that antique store? Look back of you, Jim, way back there. They’re following us. Hurry!”
    “Don’t worry, Di; we’re home!” Jim herded everyone into the lobby. Then he inserted his key in the door that opened into the elevator entrance to the apartments.
    Safe inside, Trixie shaded her eyes and looked out at the street. Then she beckoned to Honey and Jim. “See those men slinking off up the street?” Her voice trembled with excitement. “They’re the ones who were following us. I wonder why.”

The Paper Prophecy ● 3

    NOW,WHAT DO you think of that?” Trixie said as they stood in the living room. “Does anyone believe me now when I say something mysterious is going on?”
    “I do!” Barbara said quickly. “Isn’t it exciting?”
    “I don’t.” Mart went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and looked down at the street below. “Dan has everyone all worked up with his stories about wicked New York.”
    “I didn’t tell you half of it,” Dan said defensively. “There may not be a mystery now—I don’t think there is—but those men definitely followed us. They’re probably a couple of cheap thieves.”
    “It’s a cinch they don’t have anything to do with the Mexican woman at the airport, anyway,” Mart insisted. “That’s when Trixie began to act mysterious.”
    “I never underestimate any idea Trixie has,” Jim said. “If you remember some of the things that have happened to us, you won’t, either, Mart.”
    Trixie smiled at Jim. “Thanks. There’s a chance I may be wrong about the whole thing. I just have one of those queer feelings in my bones.”
    “Everybody watch out, then!” Mart warned, a twinkle in his eye.
    “Boy, I hope she’s right!” Bob’s eyes shone.
    Brian yawned ostentatiously. “At midnight I don’t care too much whether she’s right or not. Is anyone sleepy besides me?”
    “I think we all are.” Jim opened the door that led to the hall and to the boys’ apartment. “Everyone up early in the morning! We’ve lots to do. Come on, fellas!”
    Miss Trask had gone to her room as soon as they got home. Honey and Trixie said good night to Barbara and Diana at the door to their room. Honey went ahead of Trixie to turn on the light on the nightstand in the room they shared.
    “I’m as wide-awake as an owl,” Trixie said thoughtfully as she curled up in a comfortable chair. “How about you?”
    “I’m not sleepy, either, for some reason,” Honey answered.
    “It’s been quite a day. I wonder if that Mexican woman found her daughter waiting for her when the plane reached Mexico City.”
    “She seems to be on your mind all the time, Trixie. Why?”
    “I don’t know. It was good of her to give me this pretty handbag, wasn’t it?” Trixie picked up the straw bag, stretched the top to open it, and looked inside.
    “There’s a coin purse in it. I wish it could be filled with gold, as Mart said when he was teasing me. Think what I could do for Moms if that ever happened! Why, Honey, there’s a folded paper here. I wonder what it says.”
    Trixie unfolded the note excitedly and spread it on her lap. “There’s writing on it in some strange language. Look at it, Honey. What language is it?”
    “Spanish, I think. Do you suppose the woman wrote you a letter?”
    “Could be,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “She was busy writing something when I brought the drink to her. It isn’t a letter, though. It’s funny. It’s a sort of verse. What can it be? Do you know any Spanish, Honey?”
    “Very little. I can recognize a word here and there. There’s grande. It means ‘big.’ ”
    “Or ‘great,’ maybe.”
    “Yes. Then here’s the word cabeza. Do you know, that one?”
    “ ‘Head.’ Cabezagrande... ‘big head.’ Someone’s big-headed.”
    “She couldn’t possibly have meant that you were big-headed, Trixie,” Honey declared loyally.
    “She’d never have said it to me even if she thought it. Anyway, there’s the word hombre... ‘man.’ It must mean ‘big-headed man.’ Honey, when she gave me the purse, I remember she said the word cuidadito. ”
    “Heavens, that means ‘beware’!”
    “I don’t understand that at all. Just before she went out to her plane, she said to me, ‘It is more than purse. It is great fortune.’ I surely wouldn’t beware of great fortune. I’d run toward