The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon

and skirt. She was staring out at the fog. “You know, Honey,” she said, “I sure wish my father were here.”
    “Why, Trixie,” Honey exclaimed, “I’ve never known you to be homesick before.”
    Trixie turned her head and smiled. “No, it isn’t what you think. It’s just that my dad knows everything there is to know about lending and borrowing money. If he were here, he could tell me about it.”
    Di, toothbrush in hand, poked her head into the room. “Maybe I can help,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
    Trixie thought for a moment, then said, “I was wondering what would happen if Mr. Trask really didn’t have the money he borrowed.”
    Di frowned and leaned against the door. “That’s funny,” she answered. “I was just thinking about that myself. I heard my parents talking about something like this once. I’m not sure if I can explain it, but I think the way it works is this:
    If you want to borrow money, you usually have to give something to the lender to let him know you’re going to pay him back.”
    “What kind of something?” Honey asked.
    “I think it has to be something else of value that you own,” Di said slowly. “It’s called collateral, or security, or something. Then, if you can’t pay back what you’ve borrowed, you have to forfeit whatever the thing was you’d given the lender.”
    “Such as the deed to this place?” Trixie asked. Di nodded.
    “So if Mr. Trask borrowed money from Mr. Morgan,” Trixie said, thinking hard, “and then couldn’t pay him back—”
    “Then Mr. Morgan would take over Pirate’s Inn.” Di frowned. “Did you understand all that? I’m not sure I understand it myself.”
    “You made it as clear as anything,” Honey said loyally.
    Di looked pleased as she said good-night and went to her room.
    “So that’s one mystery solved,” Trixie remarked. Honey chuckled as she climbed into the lower bunk. “I know another mystery you can solve right now,” she said. “You can tell me when you’re going to turn out the light and get to bed.” Trixie wasn’t listening. “I’ve just thought of something else,” she said. “If Mr. Trask didn’t really have the money he said he did, maybe he’d try to get it.”
    Honey yawned. “Maybe he would.”
    “Then just maybe”—Trixie sounded eager— “when we were all in the dining room, he suddenly saw someone—or maybe he thought of someone—he could borrow the money from. He went to talk to him. Perhaps he thought he’d only be gone a few minutes.”
    “Then why didn’t he say something to his sister?” Honey asked reasonably. “And why didn’t he come back?”
    “He didn’t tell his sister,” Trixie said slowly, “because he’s been trying to prove to her that he’s a success at last. I think, Honey, that he’s had lots of ideas over the years that haven’t worked out. Maybe they’ve quarreled about this before. And he didn’t come back tonight because—” She stopped.
    “Go on.”
    “I don’t know that I can,” Trixie confessed. “It all sounds so silly when I try to explain it. I was going to say that maybe the person he wanted to borrow the money from lived a long way away. So Mr. Trask got into his friend’s car and—“
    “You’re right, Trixie,” Honey told her. “When you put it like that, it does sound peculiar. I think there must be some other explanation. I can’t imagine what it is, though. Let’s sleep on it, okay?” She pulled the covers up to her chin and closed her eyes.
    A little while later, Trixie lay in the upper bunk, staring up at the ceiling. She had tossed and turned. She had counted sheep and tried not to think about groaning foghorns, and ghostly galleons, and villainous-looking pirates—but it hadn’t worked. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get to sleep. Her brain was still too busy trying to solve the mystery of Mr. Trask’s disappearing trick.
    Moving quietly, so as not to disturb Honey, who was breathing deeply, Trixie sighed and gave up. She switched on the little brass lamp over her head. Then she reached for her new Lucy Radcliffe novel, Mission in Munich, and opened it to the first page.

    She read:

Chapter One
I was in danger. I knew it as soon as I moved to the head of the stairs. I should have sensed it sooner. After all, I had just found my partner bound and gagged in the musty linen closet on the second floor. Now he was powerless, and it was up to me to save us both.
I paused with my