The Mystery of the Millionaire

single name listed under ‘Investigators-Private’ that could possibly be Mark McGraw’s, no matter how he spells it.”
    Honey, too, straightened up, reluctantly admitting, “I’m afraid you’re right, Trixie. I—I guess I knew you were right all along, but I just didn’t want to believe it. Do you realize what this means for Laura? She’s put all her faith in Mark McGraw’s ability to find her father.”
    Trixie shook her head, her jaws clenched. “Laura Ramsey has put in all Mr. Lytell’s money, you mean,” she said through gritted teeth. “I bet they’re in this together.”
    “Trixie!” Honey’s exclamation was filled with shock and horror. “You can’t mean that!”
    “What else can it mean?” Trixie asked desperately. “How do you explain Laura’s hiring a phony detective? It can’t be an accident.”
    Honey chewed on her lower lip, her hazel eyes sweeping the room as if hoping to find a better explanation written on one of the walls.
    “Where is she?” Trixie asked softly.
    Honey looked at her best friend nervously. “She’s down at the lake, taking a swim.”
    “Let’s go,” Trixie said abruptly, heading for the door.
    “We can’t— I mean, maybe we should talk this over with Jim or somebody, before we go making wild accusations.”
    “Wild!” Trixie, herself, sounded a bit wild by this time! “Laura Ramsey brought in someone she said was a detective, whose name, she said, was Mark McGraw, and who supposedly came from New York City. Now we find out that no such person exists. That’s a wild accusation?”
    Honey held up both hands in a gesture of despair. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go ask Laura about Mark McGraw. But please, Trixie, try to be tactful. If there is some logical explanation, I don’t want Laura to feel as though she’s under suspicion.”
    “I don’t know, sometimes, how you can be so trusting, Honey,” Trixie said. She continued quickly, before Honey could interrupt. “But I’ll be tactful, I promise.”
    The girls found Laura stretched out on a towel on the beach near the boathouse. Her body glistened with suntan oil, and cotton pads covered her eyes. The girls hovered for a moment, not sure how to make their presence known. Then Honey cleared her throat softly.
    Laura sat up with a start, the cotton pads dropping unnoticed into her lap. She shaded her eyes with one hand and squinted up at the girls, smiling when she recognized them. “Going swimming?” she asked. “It’s too nice a day to do anything else, I think.”
    “N-No,” Honey said, “we didn’t come here to go swimming. Actually, there’s something we wanted to ask you.”
    Trixie thought she saw Laura’s body stiffen. Could she have some inkling that she’d been found out? Trixie wondered. She decided to let Honey do the talking. Tact was her friend’s talent, not her own.
    Honey cleared her throat again and sat down on the sand next to Laura. “Do you remember the first time Mark McGraw was here, how he gave Trixie and me some assignments to work on?” She waited for Laura’s nod, then went on. “Well, we suddenly realized that we’d never given them to him. We—we thought he might need them, so we decided to call him and offer to mail them to his office. We... well, we couldn’t get his number. I mean, the directory assistance operator told us there was no listing for such a person.”
    Trixie had stopped breathing as she watched Laura Ramsey’s face, wondering if the woman would burst into tears and confess or bolt and run, trying to get away. Nothing in Trixie’s imaginings had prepared her for Laura’s actual reaction: The frightened look on her face vanished, and she began to laugh!
    “Of course you didn’t find a listing,” Laura said. “Mr. McGraw doesn’t have one. You see, he works for a large firm of detectives; it’s one of the oldest in the state. They don’t list each of their investigators individually, of course. And for reasons you can probably understand, his home number is unlisted.”
    Trixie stared at the ground and let out her pent-up breath slowly. She felt, rather than saw, Honey glance at her briefly before turning her attention back to Laura. “I was sure there was some explanation,” she said.
    “Actually,” Laura Ramsey said, “I thought I had explained, back when I first came here. A friend of mine who had a necklace stolen recommended Mr. McGraw to me. She had simply called the detective firm, and she was lucky