The Mystery of the Millionaire

enough to have Mr. McGraw assigned to her case. She was so impressed with him that she asked him for several of his business cards, which she handed out to her friends. She wanted to make sure that they’d be able to get him, personally, if they ever needed a detective.” Laura Ramsey had picked up her bottle of suntan oil and began applying another coat to her arms as she spoke. “The card is in my suitcase, back at the house. When I come up, I’ll find it and give it to you. I do think that Mr. McGraw should have those assignments of yours.”
    “Thank you,” Honey said politely. She stood up and brushed the sand off her jeans. “Shall we go back to the house?” she asked Trixie sweetly.
    Trixie nodded, still unwilling to speak or to look her friend in the eye. She knew that a stern lecture on her suspiciousness awaited her, but she knew, too, that she deserved it.
    Honey said nothing on the way back to the house, however. It was as if she knew that Trixie’s conscience would be much harsher than she could be.
    Trixie, too, avoided discussing what had happened, although she could not dismiss it from her mind. Back in Honey’s room, her eyes scanned the pages of a borrowed book, but her mind absorbed little of what she read. For some reason, she thought about Bobby. There was something he’d said that she wanted to remember, but it eluded her.
    At dinner, too, Trixie was distracted and unusually quiet. When Jim commented on it, she could only say lamely, “It’s just the heat, I guess.” She did manage a small smile, but Jim’s piercing gaze told her that her reply had not satisfied him.
    Trixie had a feeling of floating in space. Although her suspicions had been disproved, they had not been dismissed. The distrust of Laura Ramsey that she had so carefully kept to herself had been given free rein for a while that afternoon. Now, again, she was finding it hard to control it.
    When dinner was over, she stood next to her chair for a moment, watching almost jealously as Celia cleared the table. The best cure for her free-floating feeling, she knew, would be to anchor herself with useful work. But her usual chores simply didn’t exist at Manor House.
    “What do you want to do until bedtime?” Honey asked, as if reading her friend’s thoughts.
    “I don’t know,” Trixie told her. “We don’t usually have much trouble filling time, since we can talk for hours and hours. But tonight I feel I ought to keep my mouth shut as much as I possibly can.”
    Honey smiled sympathetically. “I know why you feel that way, but I miss your chatter. Jim did, too, tonight at dinner. We can find something to talk about that won’t remind us of... well, of things we don’t want to talk about.”
    Trixie shook her head. “No matter what we start out talking about, we always come back to mysteries. I think I’d be better off just trying to read a book. Do you mind if I get something else out of the library?”
    “Help yourself,” Honey told her. “I’ll be up in my room.”
    Trixie nodded and went to the library. Lost in her own thoughts, she was unaware of Laura Ramsey’s voice until she’d already opened the door and stepped into the room.
    “All right, darling,” Laura was saying into the telephone. “I’ll see you soon.” Laura hung up the receiver and started to leave the room. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Trixie. Her face seemed flushed, but whether it was from embarrassment or sunbathing, Trixie couldn’t be sure. “That was my father’s secretary,” Laura said. “I’ve been calling her every day or two to let her know I’m all right. I don’t want her to get suspicious, you know.”
    Trixie nodded, her eyes still on Laura’s face. She tried to imagine herself calling Peter Belden’s secretary “darling,” but it was impossible!
    Laura hurried past Trixie and left the library. Trixie forced herself to concentrate on the rows of books. Then, finding something that looked as though it might hold her attention, she went upstairs to Honey’s room.
    A half hour later, she slammed the book shut. “It’s no use,” she told Honey. “I can’t keep my mind on what I’m reading. I keep going over the same sentence two or three times and still don’t know what it’s about.”
    Honey carefully marked her place in her own book before she closed it. “What would you like to do?” she asked.
    “I’ve been feeling up in the air all evening,” Trixie said. “One thing that