The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon

the scratch marks on the door. If the fool had just thought to try the handle, he could have saved himself lots of trouble.”
    “Did my brother call the police?” Miss Trask asked sharply.
    “Nope,” Weasel replied. “I told him that he should, but no one ever listens to me. He questioned the staff, o’ course, but”—he shrugged— “it coulda been one of the guests, too. And he couldn’t very well say much to them, could he?“
    “So what did he do then?” Trixie asked.
    Weasel shrugged again. “He didn’t do anything. He said nothing was taken, so there was no point in making a fuss. But after that, he was more careful. Don’t worry; he’s probably got his cash stashed somewhere else by now.” He moved toward the door. “Do you want me to keep looking for him? We probably won’t get too many more for dinner tonight, anyway.”
    Miss Trask nodded, but she looked worried as Weasel left the room.
    “I never know whether we ought to believe the stories he tells,” Jim remarked.
    “All the same,” Brian said, “the attempted robbery story sounds genuine enough. It’s his looks that make us distrust him.”
    “Maybe,” Di said slowly, “it wouldn’t hurt if we all searched for your brother, Miss Trask. I’m sure he’s okay, but it’s strange that no one can find him.”
    Trixie noticed that Di was careful not to voice the thought now at the forefront of their minds: What if something had gone wrong with Mr. Trask’s disappearing trick? He could be lying hurt somewhere.
    Or maybe , Trixie thought, he’s stuck at the bottom of a shaft , the way I was.
    She couldn’t help shivering when she thought again about the story of the ghostly galleon. It appeared only when disaster was about to strike the Trasks, Weasel Willis had told them.
    A cold hand seemed to clutch at the pit of her stomach. “Di’s right,” she said. “We all ought to search. And we mustn’t give up till we find him.”

    Trixie and Honey were the only two Bob-Whites who had their jackets with them, so it was agreed that they would search the grounds around the inn immediately.
    “Di and Dan will scout around inside,” Brian told Trixie as they stood in the hotel lobby. “Mart, Jim, and I will join you outside as soon as we’ve grabbed our coats.”
    “Before you go,” Trixie said, “there’s something Honey and I want to tell you. We haven’t had a chance before.” Then she told them all about the ship they had seen and the story surrounding it.
    Jim scratched his red head. “Maybe you only thought you saw a galleon,” he said.
    “Yeah, sometimes the light plays funny tricks with your eyes,” Dan said.
    “But we weren’t seeing things,” Trixie protested. “We could see the galleon as plainly as we can see you.”
    “That’s right,” Honey confirmed quickly. “The only difference was that it was.—well, it was sort of gleaming all over.”
    “And was it made out of candy and called The Good Ship Lollipop ?” Mart asked, grinning. “If you ask me, it sounds like the bad plot of one of Lucy Snodgrass’s adventure stories.”
    “Or one of Cosmo McNaught’s science-fiction yarns,” Brian drawled in warning.
    Mart flushed. “Wait till we get outside,” he mumbled, “and we can see this spooky vessel for ourselves.”
    “It’s not there anymore,” Trixie blurted. “It disappeared.”
    Mart stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked gently on his heels. “I take it back,” he said, gazing innocently at the ceiling. “The girls didn’t get this idea from a book. They’ve merely had too many Maiden’s Delights!”
    “I should have known they wouldn’t believe us!” Trixie said angrily as she and Honey hurried out the front door. “Maybe we shouldn’t have told them. All the same, I’ve got a funny feeling that we haven’t seen or heard the last of the ghostly galleon.”
    “Oh, Trix,” Honey whispered, “I hope you’re wrong!”
    It was still so foggy outside that it was difficult to see anything beyond the immediate vicinity of the inn. From somewhere upriver, they could hear the mournful groaning of a foghorn. It sounded the same two notes over and over at regular intervals. It reminded Trixie of a broken record. GER-umm! GER-umm! GER- umm!
    By the time Mart, Brian, and Jim had joined them, the two girls had already peered behind bushes and tapped outside walls, looking for clues they never found.
    “What about that picnic area?” Brian said, pointing to an area just