The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

some way we can go ahead with our plans for the bazaar, won’t we?”
    “Sure we will,” Jim muttered, but he didn’t sound convinced.
    “Absolutely!” Mart tried to grin.
    Brian said nothing. He scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his boot.
    Di wasn’t comforted. “I wanted everything to be so perfect tomorrow,” she whispered. “With Dad away, I felt I was sort of in charge of everything. I wanted my parents to see that I could handle the responsibility. And now this has to happen—”
    “Miss Trask!” Honey said suddenly.
    Trixie was puzzled. “What about her?”
    “Don’t you see?” Honey’s hazel eyes sparkled with excitement. “We could ask Miss Trask if she’d take over in Harrison’s place at the bazaar tomorrow.”
    “Hey!” Mart yelled. “That’s a superbly splendiferous notion!”
    “Oh, Di,” Trixie breathed, “do you think your father would agree to it?”
    All at once, Di was as excited as the others. “I think he might,” she said. “In fact, I’m almost sure he would. I’d have to call him and find out, but Dad knows how very reliable Miss Trask is. Oh, how perfect! My goodness, she’s been in charge of parties—”
    “And weddings,” Trixie added. “Don’t forget the weddings. Remember when the Wheelers’ maid Celia married Tom Delanoy?”
    “How could we possibly forget it?” Jim asked, laughing. He thought also of the time when his cousin, Juliana, had married her Dutch fiancé.
    On both occasions, Miss Trask had handled all the arrangements very efficiently indeed. It hadn’t been her fault that Trixie and the rest of the Bob-Whites had been busy solving mysteries then,too.
    “The question is,” Brian said, “will she do it?”
    “I’ll ask her as soon as we get home,” Honey promised. “In fact, we’ll all ask her. If we look sorrowful enough, how can she refuse?”
    Their hopes high once more, the Bob-Whites reentered the house.
    “We have to put everything back where we found it,” Brian ordered. “Honey, will you refold that blanket? It belongs over there in that closet. Mart, if you could just empty this bowl of water and put this towel somewhere. Trixie, Harrison was concerned about his hat. It’s still in the cellar, I guess. I promised him we wouldn’t forget it.”
    Trixie left him organizing his willing workers. She was glad of the chance to take a look at that cellar.
    Mart walked into the kitchen with the bowl of water just as she was poised at the top of the cellar steps.
    “Take care, squaw,” he said, grinning. “We don’t want another tragedy on our hands. Watch your nethermost appendages as you descend those stairs.”
    “I’ll watch my step. You just see that your graceful fingers don’t drop that bowl,” Trixie said, annoyed.
    The cellar was dark and cold, and Trixie shivered as she looked around. Judging by its thick stone walls and its two barred windows, she guessed it must have been a wine cellar at one time.
    A single unshaded bulb hung from the ceiling. When she switched it on, Trixie could see shelves of jams and jellies and canned fruits.
    A large wooden barrel smelled pleasantly of apples, and Harrison’s derby hat sat neatly on top of it.
    She picked it up, then jumped as something brushed against her leg. She saw, to her relief, that it was only Henry the Eighth.
    “I’m not surprised that we couldn’t hear Harrison when he yelled to us for help,” she told the cat. “We might never have heard him if he hadn’t thumped on the cellar door.”
    Henry looked supremely uninterested. He leaped to the top of the barrel and began to wash himself.
    When Trixie returned to the kitchen, Mart was still at the sink. “Mart,” Trixie said, putting the hat on a counter top, “I’m going to try and lock myself in the cellar.”
    “Good,” he said, without turning. “I hope you’re successful, Sherlock. Then I’ll have you in my power, heh-heh!”
    But Trixie was not successful. She hadn’t really thought she would be. She slammed the heavy door again and again, but it didn’t lock.
    When she had finished, Mart said, “What was that all about?”
    Trixie was thoughtful. “Harrison said he went into the cellar and accidentally locked himself in.”
    “So?”
    “So it’s impossible. I knew all along he wasn’t telling us the truth. Honey and I really had to struggle with that bolt to let him out.”
    Mart stared. “It was bolted, too?”
    “From the kitchen side of the door,” Trixie said.