The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

Trixie of somewhere else—somewhere familiar.
    Without a light, it was hard to see if anything—or anyone—was there. The barn seemed to be unoccupied, and yet....
    A loud voice broke into her thoughts. “I tell you, I saw lights up here not two minutes ago,” a man said. He sounded as if he was standing right outside the barn door.
    “I didn’t see anything,” a woman answered.
    “Quick, Honey!” Trixie whispered. “The hayloft!”
    With Trixie urging her on from below, Honey scrambled as fast as she could up the ladder. Soon the two friends lay panting, side by side, on the dusty floor above. They peered over the edge.
    Trixie smothered a gasp when she recognized the three people who walked in.
    The young woman still wore the same smart blue suit she had been wearing all day, and the bald-headed man still wore his guard’s uniform. Trixie could see the bulging outline of the menacing gun he wore on his hip.
    The third person had a bandage across his forehead. There was no doubt about it. It was Di’s butler, Harrison.
    “What’s he doing here?” Trixie hissed in Honey’s ear.
    Her only answer was a puzzled shrug.
    “I tell you I saw something up here,” the guard was saying obstinately.
    “You must have been imagining things,
    Charlie,” the young woman answered. “There’s nothing here now.”
    “I fear we are wasting our time—” Harrison began. Then he stopped and looked, startled, toward the wide door.
    There was a sudden sound of furtive movement. The door creaked open, and a black nose appeared slowly around the edge of it.
    In the hayloft, Trixie sighed. The newcomer was Reddy.
    The young woman laughed and bent down to pet him. “It’s only a dog,” she said. “That’s what you must have seen, Charlie.”
    Reddy sat down and thumped his tail on the dusty floor. He had obviously recovered from his fright. Trixie could see the silly animal trying to look brave and strong and utterly dependable.
    “I saw lights, I tell you.” Charlie sounded irritated. “Dogs don’t wear lights. I think we ought to take a look in that hayloft.”
    Trixie and Honey shrank back as they heard his heavy footsteps moving toward the ladder.
    Trixie glanced over her shoulder. There was nowhere to hide! Nowhere at all!
    “Forget it, Charles,” Harrison said suddenly. “It’s been a long, frustrating day. First there was all that trouble with the hospital when they didn’t want me to leave. Then we had no help from Mother Goose. Now, it seems, we’re chasing lights. They were probably fireflies.”
    Charlie hesitated for a long moment. “What d’you want to do with the dog?” he said at last.
    Trixie held her breath and thought again of the gun at Charlie’s hip.
    It seemed forever before she heard Harrison say, “The dog, I believe, belongs to the Beldens. Leave him here. He will undoubtedly find his own way home.”
    In another instant, Harrison and his fellow conspirators were gone.
    Trixie felt limp with relief as she hurried down the ladder. She threw her arms around Reddy’s neck and buried her hot face in his disheveled coat.
    “Oh, Reddy,” she whispered, “I thought you were a goner, for sure.”
    Honey hurried to join them. She shuddered. “What does it all mean, Trix? What was Harrison doing here? Who are those people? Do you think they’re Harrison’s gang? Is he the brains of the outfit? Oh, Trixie, why don’t you answer?” Trixie sighed and rose to her feet. She held on firmly to Reddy’s collar. “I don’t answer because I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe Harrison is the leader of a gang. There’s only one good thing about all this mess.”
    “What’s that?” Honey asked hopefully.
    “We’re not lost any longer.” She removed the belt from her jeans and fastened it to Reddy’s collar. “Just before we came in here, I noticed this old barn has a super view. Look!” She opened the wide door and pointed.
    Off to the left, down in a hollow, Honey could plainly see the lights shining from Rose Crandall’s little house. To the right, far across the treetops, the rising moon shone on a long winding ribbon of road—Glen Road. A broad trail wound its way through the woods toward home.
    Trixie and Reddy looked at each other. “Whatever you do,” Trixie told him firmly, “don’t take us back to Crabapple Farm.”
    So, of course, Reddy led them straight to it.

    For the next few days, Trixie had little time to think about what had