The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon

couldn’t very well tell them so.”
    Honey shivered. “How come they’re inside, where we want to be, and we’re outside, where it’s cold and damp?”
    Trixie squeezed her friend’s arm. “I’m sorry. I told them the first dumb thing that came into my head.” She sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t have waked you up at all.”
    “Of course you should,” Honey declared. “I’d never have forgiven you if you’d wandered off without me.” All the same, Trixie saw her trying hard to stifle another yawn.
    “We’ll just wait for a couple of minutes until Gaston and Weasel have gone,” she said, “then we’ll go back inside, okay?”
    “Back to bed?”
    Trixie hesitated. “I guess if we can’t get into the office tonight, we’ll have to leave it till tomorrow,” she said reluctantly.
    It seemed that Gaston was still concerned about them, for the front door opened again, and he hurried toward them.
    “Sometimes I am slow on the intake—” he said.
    “Doesn’t he mean uptake?” Trixie whispered to Honey.
    “—but I still remember when I was a boy,” Gaston continued, stroking his mustache. “In those days, I liked to look at the surprises many times. And this, I tell myself, is what you have come to see again, no? For this you decide not to sleep. And this I understand now.”
    “Surprise?” Honey said.
    “But yes! Monsieur Trask’s big surprise. She is beautiful, is she not?”
    Trixie frowned. “Do you mean Mr. Trask’s disappearing trick?”
    “Of the vanishing trick, I know nothing,” he told them. “Of the ship, I know everything.” Trixie and Honey exchanged quick glances. Gaston looked from one to the other. “But what is this? Do you tell me this is not what you have come to see?”
    “I’m not sure we know what you mean,” Honey said.
    “But you do,” Gaston insisted. “The Weasel, he tells me everything. He should not have spoiled the big surprise, but he showed it to you.“
    “I didn’t know Mr. Willis showed us anything,” Trixie replied, puzzled.
    “But it is the galleon of which I speak,” Gaston said. “The Weasel, he tells me he repeats to you the old legend. Then, before your so-magnificent dinner, he sees you walking toward the cliff. He cannot resist it. He stands right here by the front door. He flips on the lights, so!” He reached to a set of switches on the outside wall. “And voilà! The Sea Fox , she sails again.”
    Trixie stared through the fog toward the river, but from the inn, she could see nothing that lay below the cliff.
    Honey seemed to feel as confused as Trixie. “I’m afraid I still don’t understand, Mr. Gabriel,” she said. “We saw the ship vanish—”
    “But of course it did,” Gaston said patiently. “The ship, she is being painted now with fluorescent paint. The lights, they are very special ones. They are black.”
    Trixie was beginning to understand. “I’ve seen black lights used to illuminate some aquariums,” she told Honey.
    “When these lights are turned on at night,” Gaston continued, “ah, what a mystification! The ship, she glows in the dark. When the lights are turned off— poof !—the galleon, she disappears. Monsieur Trask, he did not show you this?”
    “Maybe he was going to just before he—he had to leave,” Trixie said slowly. “Oh, Mr. Gabriel, are you sure about this?”
    “But of course I am sure,” Gaston answered.
    “And Mr. Trask owns the ship?” Honey asked.
    “Mais oui!” Gaston exclaimed. “He looked a very long time for the pirate ship. He decided he needed it to give the inn—”
    “Atmosphere?” Trixie suggested.
    “Exactly!” Gaston beamed at her. “So Monsieur Trask one day finds what he looks for. He finds a ship which has been used on the moving picture.”
    “He got it from a movie lot?” Honey asked.
    “The ship, she has sailed up and down, down and up, in the ocean,” Gaston told her. “The actors and actresses, they have swooned on the decks. They have climbed in the eagle’s nest—”
    “Crow’s nest,” Trixie murmured.
    “And when the movie is finished, Monsieur Trask, he buys this so-beautiful galleon for not very much money, yes?”
    Trixie was fascinated, watching Gaston as he accompanied his remarks with wide, expressive movements of his hands. “What happened then?” she asked breathlessly.
    “The galleon, she is brought all the way to the Hudson River,” Gaston said. “And then the workmen come. They start the work to make her