The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

forced herself to look.
    There, sitting on the window seat and looking back at her, was not a monster but a very large, very fluffy, very beautiful black Persian cat. As she watched, he opened his mouth wide and yawned.
    “At least you were right about the teeth,” Honey said, still trying to control her giggles. “They are very long.”
    Trixie felt relieved, ashamed, and amused, all at the same time. She scratched on the windowpane with her fingernails. The cat came closer and tried to rub his head against her hand. She could almost hear him purring from where she was standing.
    “I don’t know how I could have been so silly,” she confessed, “and I suppose he wasn’t really jumping at me at all. He was just jumping onto the window seat. Wait till the boys hear about this; they’ll never let me forget it.”
    “Then we simply won’t tell them,” Honey declared loyally. “But what are we going to do now?”
    “I suppose we’d better leave,” Trixie said. “Maybe that isn’t Harrison’s bike, after all.” Honey was disappointed. “I guess you’re right—” She stopped. “What was that? Am I hearing things?”
    But Trixie had heard it, too. The noise came from somewhere inside the house. Thump, thump, thump! It sounded as though someone were beating on a wall or on a door.
    Trixie shouted at the top of her lungs, “Is that you, Harrison?”
    A faint voice answered her.
    “Did you hear that?” Honey exclaimed. “He said the front door’s unlocked.”
    The front door, which they had not thought to try before, was indeed unlocked. Trixie and Honey ran at top speed through the little house, which smelled strongly of—was it lavender?
    They found themselves standing in a sunny kitchen whose walls were hung with gleaming pots and pans.
    “Why,” Honey remarked, “it reminds me of the kitchen at Crabapple Farm.”
    But Trixie’s attention had wandered. She saw a not-quite-empty dish on the floor, containing what were obviously the remains of the cat’s supper. She saw the door to the cellar, with its old-fashioned heavy key turned in its lock. She also saw the iron bolt—which had been pushed home and which she and Honey now struggled to release. In another second, the door was open.
    An almost unrecognizable figure staggered into the kitchen. Trixie had seen scarecrows that looked better than this!
    The man’s graying hair stood on end. His black jacket was torn, his striped trousers wrinkled. A faint stubble of gray beard showed on his chin—and one side of his pale face was covered with dried blood.
    Trixie and Honey took one horrified look before rushing forward to help him to a kitchen chair.
    “Thank you, Miss Trixie. Thank you, Miss Honey,” the man said politely. “I was beginning to think no one would ever come.”
    Harrison was found!

    Fifteen minutes later, the Bob-Whites were together again. It had been Trixie who had summoned them urgently to Sleepyside Hollow. She had stood on the front porch and whistled their
    very special signal to the wooded hills: bob , bob-white-, bob , bob-white. First Brian and Jim and then Mart and Di appeared, as if by magic, through the trees.
    Brian and Mart were as surprised as Trixie had been at having found the unexpected shortcut to Sleepyside Hollow. Then Brian, concerned as always when anyone was ill or injured, had taken charge.
    He had immediately telephoned Dr. Ferris and had listened to crisp instructions. Now both the doctor and the ambulance he had promised to send would be here at any moment. Harrison, pale and more shaken than he cared to admit, lay covered with a blanket on the living room couch. There was nothing to do but wait.
    The Bob-Whites gathered by the window, their heads close together, quietly talking over all that had happened.
    “Harrison looks better since you washed the blood off his face,” Honey told Brian. “Even that gash on his head doesn’t look so bad.”
    “Do you think he’s seriously hurt?” Di asked, sounding anxious.
    “It’s hard to say,” Brian said. “I think he’ll need stitches, at least. And, of course, he’s had a bad shock. Spending the night in that cold cellar didn’t help, either.”
    Di put a hand on his arm. “But he will be all right, won’t he?” She tried to laugh. “I know it sounds silly, but with Dad away, I—I feel sort of responsible for seeing that the servants are—you know—”
    “Comfortable and happy?” Mart asked. “Something like that,” Di