The Mystery of the Memorial Day Fire

ones.”
    “Couldn’t he just throw the phony records out?” Trixie asked.
    “Not unless he had something to replace them with,” Brian told her. “But he didn’t, because he’d already destroyed the real records. No, he had to come up with some excuse for not having records of the warehouse inventory at all.”
    “So he staged another fire,” Trixie concluded.
    Jane Dix-Strauss nodded again. “I was afraid he would, eventually. There was nothing I could do about it, though. Proving arson takes more than suspicions and a good motive. It requires showing exclusive opportunity, which means that no one else could have started the fire; or intent, which means that the fire was started on purpose. I hoped to prove one of those by continuing to investigate and looking for evidence. I missed the only real clue, though. Trixie found that.”
    “The button,” Trixie explained as all eyes turned her way.
    “So it really was a clue!” Honey exclaimed proudly.
    “Would you care to elucidate on the history of this infamous fastener?” Mart asked.
    Trixie briefly told Jim and her brothers about finding the gold monogrammed button behind Roberts’s store, about assuming that the initials were Jane Dix-Strauss’s, and about confronting the reporter and losing the evidence as a result.
    “I knew, of course, that it wasn’t my button as soon as Trixie handed it to me,” Jane said. “I really don’t go in for anything as flashy as monogrammed buttons.”
    “Mr. Slettom goes in for everything flashy,” Trixie said. “I should have picked up on that.”
    “I had a big advantage, though,” Jane said. “Slettom and I have the same initials, and that’s the kind of thing a person notices right away.
    “Anyway, when Trixie said she’d found the button under a brick in the alley, I realized that meant Slettom must have lost it before the fire, when the bricks came tumbling down.”
    “Then Mr. Slettom started the second fire and Mr. Roberts looked even guiltier and I stormed down to the police station and accused you,” Trixie said ruefully.
    “You what?” Brian asked.
    “Our sibling is developing her propensity for secretive actions,” Mart said.
    “I was in too much of a hurry to tell you before I went, and I was too embarrassed when I got back,” Trixie explained. “The whole thing really blew up in my face.”
    “It wasn’t a total loss,” Jane Dix-Strauss said. “It was your accusation that brought us all here tonight.”
    “You’re going to have to explain that a little more thoroughly for those of us who were kept in the dark,” Jim said.
    “Well, in front of both me and Slettom, Trixie told the sergeant that I’d written an article on arson two years ago, that a button with my initials on it had been found in the alley behind Roberts’s store, and that I’d been seen in the alley talking to a mysterious man the night before the fire at Slettom’s store.
    “The sergeant didn’t think twice about the accusation, but Slettom did. It made Slettom more desperate because he realized I’d know whose initials those really were on the button. It also gave him a way out. He could cast suspicion on me as he already had on Mr. Roberts. He had his secretary call me tonight as she called Mr. Roberts last night. She said she was Honey Wheeler and that she and Trixie Belden had more proof that I was the arsonist. She said she’d tell the police unless I came to the stable to talk it over.”
    “Why would he ask you to meet him in the stable?” Brian asked.
    “Where else?” Jane Dix-Strauss countered. “If two fourteen-year-olds want to arrange a secret meeting, they can’t say, ‘Come on over and have my mother show you to my room.’ They also can’t risk trying to get too far from home. That part, at least, made perfect sense.”
    “It’s still a pretty flimsy story,” Sergeant Molinson said.
    “I thought so,” Jane Dix-Strauss agreed. “The secretary didn’t do a very good job of sounding like a fourteen-year-old, either. But Mr. Slettom isn’t a professional criminal, and I think we can assume he was just desperate enough to try anything. If it hadn’t worked, he would have tried something else.”
    “There was another good reason for him to think it would work,” Trixie said. “After all, it wasn’t important for you to believe the story. It was just important for you to show up. Anyone who’s had anything to do with you would know you’d show up after a phone call