The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon

four cylinders.”
    Trixie’s face was red. “It wasn’t anything,” she mumbled, “and it wouldn’t have worked if Mart hadn’t made Clarence talk.”
    “But it was something,” Di insisted. “If you hadn’t guessed where Mr. Trask had hidden the money, the inn would belong to that awful Mr. Morgan right now.”
    “That’s right,” Mr. Trask boomed. “How did you know where to find it, Trixie?”
    “I got to remembering that old riddle,” Trixie replied, “where a rooster lays an egg exactly in the middle of a gabled roof. One side of the roof is painted red, the other blue. So—on which side of the roof did the egg fall?”
    Honey frowned. “What do gabled roofs have to do with where you found the money?”
    “The answer to both problems is very simple once you’ve figured it out—” Trixie began.
    Before she could finish, Weasel Willis was by her side. “Gaston wants you to have this as a reward,” he announced, presenting her with the largest hot fudge sundae she had ever seen.
    There was something different about the Weasel, but Trixie couldn’t figure out what it was. This new puzzle distracted her attention from Honey’s question.
    Mr. Trask chuckled and said, “You’ll be glad to know that Weasel’s put away his eye patch forever. He really does have two good eyes. He was just using the patch and his stubbly chin for—”
    “Atmosphere!” everyone shouted.
    Trixie felt sorry that she had ever suspected the Weasel of wrongdoing. She knew she would have to learn not to judge by appearances alone.
    On the other hand, everything had turned out wonderfully for Miss Trask. She and Trixie had recently had a private talk. Trixie knew now that she had been dreading her visit to Pirate’s Point. She had quarreled with her brother many months ago, but now they had made up and were friends once more. And now that Pirate’s Inn was paid for, Mr. Trask could even help with their invalid sister’s hospital bills.
    “And the police have caught Smiley Jackson,” Miss Trask announced. “He’s confessed everything, even to setting the fire. He wouldn’t have let the inn burn, of course. He was just trying to cause the last in a series of ‘accidents’ to force Frank to give up.”
    “I still don’t understand how Mr. Morgan and Smiley hoped to get away with kidnapping you,” Di told Mr. Trask.
    “I’m sure,” Trixie said, “that they would have denied everything. And they would have let their prisoner go, once they owned the inn, and Mr. Trask couldn’t have proved anything.”
    Honey turned to Mr. Appleton and asked, “What do you use Clarence for?”
    Mr. Appleton looked uncomfortable. “I really do use him in my work,” he said. “You see, I’m a writer, and Clarence helps me figure out some of my action scenes. Last night, for instance, when you saw us on top of the cliff, Lucy was supposed to be struggling for her life with a foreign spy—” Trixie gasped. “Lucy! Are you Lucy Radcliffe ?”
    As Mr. Appleton nodded, Mart shouted with laughter. “Eighteen years old and has a peaches-and-cream complexion!” he yelled.
    But it was Trixie’s turn to laugh when Mr. Appleton added, “I’m also Cosmo McNaught. I write science-fiction stuff, too. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.”
    Brian chuckled. “Oh, they’ve both heard of you, all right. You’re sitting next to two of your greatest fans.”
    Trixie was still trying to recover from the shock when Honey said, “We found a scary note that said Trixie was being watched.”
    Marvin Appleton chuckled. “It was mine. I was doodling around with another story idea just before the fire, and I must have accidentally dropped it when I changed rooms. Incidentally, I was glad that you rescued my latest manuscript. It was in the desk drawer.”
    Jim sighed. “Now all Trixie has to do is to solve the final mystery.”
    Mr. Appleton looked puzzled. “What mystery is that?”
    “You’re standing in a house,” Honey began. “The house has windows on all four sides,” Dan added.
    “Every window faces south,” Di chimed in.
    “A quadrupedal animal of the family Ursidae walks by,” Mart said. “Now, the question is, What color is the bear?”
    Trixie laughed. “I figured that out, too! The bear was white. The only place in the world where all windows can face south is the North Pole.”
    “Of course!” Honey exclaimed. “I should have known.”
    “And I,” Trixie said, finally returning to the subject of the