The Mystery of the Millionaire

there was a woman staying with either your family or the Wheelers who fit the description, and I tried to get close enough to her to confirm it. No such luck.”
    Trixie blushed as she remembered the lengths to which the Bob-Whites had gone to keep Burt Anderson from getting any information about Laura Ramsey. She herself had helped, even though she hadn’t trusted the woman from the beginning!
    “H-How did you know that Laura Ramsey, or whatever her name is, had been arrested?” Trixie asked.
    “A good detective has contacts,” Burt Anderson replied.
    Trixie giggled at this echo of Mark McGraw. “That’s what I’ve heard,” she said. “I guess you are a good detective, in more ways than one. You don’t look like a detective, though.”
    Burt grinned. “That’s another thing that makes me a good detective,” he said.
    “As usual,” Sergeant Molinson interrupted, “you seem to be getting a good deal more information than you’re giving, Miss Belden. Would you care to tell me about your involvement in this case, or do I have to rely strictly on your written version?”
    Trixie turned and looked at Honey and Jim, but they nodded at her to begin. “Well, I think we have it all pretty much pieced together now,” she said, “after what we heard last night outside the store. It sounded as if they originally planned to pull their con on Mr. Wheeler. But Mr. McGraw decided that wouldn’t work, so they chose Mr. Lytell instead.” She looked at the storekeeper sympathetically.
    “They must have known that he rides along Glen Road every noon,” Trixie continued, “so they planted the wallet there for him to find. They probably would have worked their con without anyone else in town finding out about it. Unfortunately for them, Honey and I rode along that road just before noon, and we found the wallet.”
    “If they’d known at the time who they were dealing with, they probably would have dropped the whole thing right there,” Jim said, his eyes twinkling. “It would be worth losing their hundred-dollar bill just to avoid Supersleuths Trixie and Honey.”
    Trixie shook her head. “I don’t feel like much of a supersleuth where this case is concerned. Honey and I played right into Laura’s hands. Why, I was the one who suggested that Mr. Lytell take her car as collateral for a loan!”
    Burt Anderson nodded. “That’s the way a good con artist operates. He—or she—sets things up so that the mark always feels in control.”
    “Mark?” Honey questioned. “Do you mean Mr. McGraw?”
    Sergeant Molinson chuckled. “The mark is what con artists call their victims. I suspect your phony detective was having a little private joke when he chose that name.”
    “Anyway,” the real detective continued, “the con never seems to be pushing the mark—the victim—to accept the deal. In this case—and in the case of my client—the woman drives up in a flashy sports car. Then, at some point in the conversation, she makes what seems to be a passing reference to it, working in the fact that it’s brand-new and completely paid for. Nothing could be more logical than for the mark to take the bait, to offer a loan with the car as collateral.”
    “That’s just what happened,” Trixie confirmed. “She probably showed a great deal of reluctance to take the money, too,” the detective guessed. “She probably implied that she had a good deal more to lose than Mr. Lytell had.”
    “Exactly!” the storekeeper exclaimed. “Why, she made it sound as though she didn’t trust me to hold the car until she paid back the money. She said it wasn’t because the car was so expensive but because it might be a last gift from her father.”
    “Playing on your sympathy like that undoubtedly made you almost force the money on her,” Burt concluded. “She’s a clever one, all right.”
    “She certainly is,” Trixie agreed. “I started thinking last night, after the police arrested her, about everything that had happened. Even though she and her partner had worked things out carefully in advance, there were a lot of things that they couldn’t have been expecting— like your showing up looking for them. But she glossed it all over so smoothly.”
    “That’s right,” Honey said. “She had all of us convinced that you’d been hired by her father’s evil partner, and that something awful would happen if you caught up with her.”
    “Something awful would have happened,” Trixie said. “But not what she