The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire

let out a long, whistling breath. “Right at the moment, I’m trying to get my heart to stop doing the tango. You scared the daylights out of me!” Trixie couldn’t believe her ears. Jane Dix-Strauss had looked frightened when she’d first turned around, but now she didn’t sound frightened. “I suppose you’d like me to leave so you can start another fire,” Trixie said. “That is, if your friend isn’t available to start this one.”
    That remark, which Trixie had intended to make Jane Dix-Strauss angry, seemed to amuse her instead. There was a hint of a smile on the reporter’s face as she said, “My friend, as you call him, isn’t going to start a fire here tonight. Neither am I. The real arsonist will, though — unless you scare him away.”
    “Is that your way of saying you’ve set a trap for Mr. Roberts?” Trixie demanded.
    “Of course not,” the reporter said. “Mr. Roberts isn’t the arsonist. I’ve known that from the beginning.”
    “Then why did you write that article that made him look suspicious?”
    “I wrote the facts, because that’s my job as a reporter. And the facts that were available did make Mr. Roberts look guilty. I tried to get other facts — the ones that would prove he’s innocent. If I’d been able to interview Mr. Roberts, I could have asked questions and gotten answers that would have turned the suspicion on the right person. But his son told me to get lost — remember?”
    “Who is this ‘right person’?” Trixie asked, still suspicious.
    “You mean you don’t know?” Jane Dix-Strauss asked right back. “You gave me the crucial piece of evidence.”
    “Your button? How could your button prove that someone else started the fires?” Trixie asked, completely confused.
    “I didn’t say it was my button,” Jane Dix-Strauss said. “In fact, it isn’t, and that’s why it’s crucial.”
    “Of course, it’s your button,” Trixie said, growing angry again. “It said JDS right on it. Who else —” She broke off in mid-sentence, and her eyes grew round.
    Jane Dix-Strauss nodded a confirmation of what Trixie had just guessed. “Now you know who. I’ll be happy to explain the what, when, where, and why, as we journalists say. But not now. If he finds you here, the whole thing will be spoiled. Would you leave now, please?”
    Trixie hesitated. Her distrust of Jane Dix-Strauss was fading, but it hadn’t disappeared. Her love of a mystery was as strong as ever. Finally, she said, “I’m not leaving.”
    “O-O-Oh!” The sound came out as a groan, and Jane Dix-Strauss shoved her hands into the pockets of her blazer as if she were afraid of what she might do with them. “All right, stay here — but stay out of sight, would you?”
    Trixie looked around for a way of doing that and decided on the small closet in the comer of the tack room. From there, she wouldn’t be able to see what was happening, but at least she could hear. She went into the closet, leaving the door ajar.
    The reporter suddenly stuck her head around the door. “One more thing,” she said briskly. “Stay out of sight until I tell you otherwise. I’m trying to get evidence that will stand up in court. I know what that evidence is and you don’t. If you pop up at the wrong time, the arsonist goes free. You don’t want that, do you?”
    Trixie shook her head, and the reporter withdrew. There was a click as Jane Dix-Strauss turned off the light, and Trixie found herself in darkness. She could hear the occasional stirring of the horses on the other side of the wall behind her and could smell their rich, pungent aroma.
    The quiet darkness seemed to go on forever. Finally, Trixie heard the sound of the door sliding open. Then there was light — not the blinding light of the overhead bulb, but a softer light. He must have brought a flashlight, she thought. Oh, I wonder if it’s really him.
    “So, you showed up,” a man’s voice said.
    It sounds like him, Trixie thought, but I can ’ t be sure. She felt her heart start to race with nervousness and curiosity. Then she noticed a beam of light cutting through the darkness in the closet. A hole in the boards! she thought excitedly. She traced the beam to its source in the wall near the floor. Crouching, she put her eye close to the small hole. At first, all she saw was Jane Dix-Strauss’s slender back. The man who had just entered was facing her, and Trixie couldn’t see who it was.
    “I showed up,” Jane Dix-Strauss said.