The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire

not to let her presence be known. And suddenly the problem was taken out of her hands.
    “Trixie!” Honey’s voice floated back, not loudly but quite clearly, from the sidewalk in front of the building. “Trixie, it’s getting dark! Let’s go!”
    Trixie froze, her ears listening to Honey’s call, her eyes glued to Jane Dix-Strauss and the mysterious man.
    “What’s that?” the woman asked.
    Trixie waited just long enough to see the two begin to turn in her direction. That was it — she couldn’t hope to find out anything more by waiting around. In a moment, she’d be found out herself. She started walking back to the sidewalk as quickly and quietly as she could.
    “We’ve got to get out of here,” she told Honey. She grabbed her bike and kicked at the kickstand clumsily, needing three tries to get it out of the way of the pedal.
    “What happened?” Honey asked.
    “I can’t explain now,” Trixie said as she threw her leg over the seat of the bike and pushed down on the pedal. “Just hurry — let’s get out of here.” Honey didn’t ask any more questions. In a split second, she was on her bike. The two girls pedaled furiously, their bodies bent low over the handlebars to increase their speed.
    Trixie led her friend to Main Street and headed out on Glen Road. By now it was almost dark. For the sake of safety, Honey hung back so that both girls could stay well off the road. It was the right thing to do, Trixie knew — but she wished that Honey would ignore safety, just this once. She was bursting to tell her best friend what had happened behind Mr. Roberts’s store.
    The girls rode directly to Crabapple Farm. They ran up the stairs hoping that they wouldn’t be waylaid by Mart, Brian, or Bobby. Soon, however, they were safely behind Trixie’s closed door.
    Honey plopped herself down on the bed and gave an excited bounce. “Now, tell me this very minute, Trixie Belden. What happened back in that alley?”
    “You aren’t going to believe it, Honey,” Trixie said, flopping down on her stomach beside her friend. She closed her eyes and pictured the scene again. “I came around the corner, and I froze because I saw two people standing there. One of them was this enormous man — six feet four, at least, and big. The other person was smaller. And female. And someone I’d seen before. Someone you’ve seen, too.” Trixie opened one eye and peered at her friend. Now that the danger was past, she was enjoying the telling of it.
    “Who?” Honey squealed impatiently.
    “Sleepyside’s star reporter, that’s who,” Trixie said smugly.
    “Jane Dix-Strauss?” Honey asked.
    “None other,” Trixie said.
    “What were they doing back there?” Honey asked.
    “Well, when I first saw them, I think they were talking, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. But then” — Trixie sat up on the bed, the better to add gestures to the story — “Jane Dix-Strauss said, ‘That’s it, then. If I need anything else, I’ll call.’ And she reached into her blazer pocket, and she took out an envelope, and she handed it to the man, and he put it into his pocket!”
    As Trixie finished speaking, silence fell over the room.
    “And then?” Honey asked finally.
    Trixie sat back in amazement. “Oh, Honey, don’t you see? It was a payoff!”
    “A payoff.” Honey repeated the words without conviction.
    “It has to be,” Trixie continued. “Jane Dix-Strauss is in the alley behind the burned-out building with this mysterious man. She hands him an envelope. It can’t be something regular, like a letter, because she could just mail it. It has to be something she’d want kept secret — like a payoff for something. And what would she be paying somebody off for behind Roberts’s store?”
    “Some photographs he took for her?” Honey asked helpfully.
    “Photographs!” Trixie said. “In the dark? Besides, Jane Dix-Strauss takes her own pictures. Don’t you remember how she sneaked up on us with her camera at the Memorial Day parade?”
    “Well, what then?” Honey’s usually limitless patience was wearing thin.
    “I think she was paying off the arsonist,” Trixie said, dropping her voice to a whisper.
    “What!” All Honey could do was to squeak the word.
    “Well, think about it,” Trixie said reasonably. “Jane Dix-Strauss is already an expert on arson. As soon as she moves here, Sleepyside has a case of arson. The result is that this new reporter gets some articles with her by-line