The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

Discovery at the Marsh • 1

    HONK THE HORN!” Trixie Belden called excitedly and put her hand over Brian s tanned fingers. With an older brother’s tolerance, he smiled and stopped his battered, stripped-down car in front of the Manor House, the huge Wheeler estate at Sleepy-side-on-the-Hudson.
    “If I know Honey and Jim,” he said, “they’ve been looking out of a window for half an hour, rackets in hand, waiting for us.”
    “Maybe,” Trixie said and jumped from the car. “They should be coming around the house right now if they heard the car.”
    Mart, almost her twin, swung his slim legs over the doorless backseat. “Heck, they can hear it the minute Brian backs out of the garage, half a mile away.”
    “Hi!” they called to Tom, the Wheeler chauffeur, who was washing down the station wagon.
    “Hi, yourselves!” Tom answered. Anyone could tell from the broad grin on his face that he liked the “Belden kids,” as he called them—especially Trixie, his boss’s daughter’s best friend. It was so much fun to tease her. She had a temper, although her short, sandy curls and big blue eyes belied it.
    “I’m trying to clean and polish this car so it’ll look just the way you want it,” Tom said. “I didn’t think it would take long for you to get here, once you heard the news.”
    “What news?” Trixie asked breathlessly. “Hi, Honey! Hi, Jim! Are you going on a trip? Is that the news?”
    Honey, a tall, graceful blonde just Trixie’s age, came out of the house, smiling, followed by her older brother, Jim.
    Tom threw down the hose in disgust. “Do you mean you Belden kids don’t know what I’m talking about? Gosh, Honey, I sure opened my big mouth. Your dad will be plenty mad at me.”
    “No, he won’t,” said Honey, laughing. “Daddy never gets plenty mad’ at anyone, without a very good reason.”
    “Then what did Tom mean?” Trixie insisted.
    “Aren’t we going to play tennis this morning?”
    Jim just laughed. “Take a look in the garage!”
    He watched Trixie, Brian, and Mart as their eyes widened in wonder at the brand-new Continental sedan, shiny and blue, glittering with chrome.
    “Gol, it’s neat!” Mart said, awed.
    “Cool!” Brian echoed.
    “Isn’t she a beauty?” Tom asked, laying his hands lovingly on the hood. “She’ll sure leave you far behind in the old station wagon, Jim.”
    “Are you going to drive the station wagon now, Jim?” Trixie asked with great interest.
    “Not only drive it.” Jim grew an inch taller before their eyes. “I’m part owner!”
    “Is Honey the other part?” Trixie asked quickly. Then she added sadly, “She can't even drive.”
    “I’m one of the owners,” Honey said excitedly. “You are, too, Trixie, and Brian and Mart and Diana and Dan!”
    She giggled at the questions in their eyes. “Daddy is giving our station wagon to the Bob-Whites of the Glen.”
    “He’s doing what?” Trixie asked, unbelieving. “Look at what Mart’s doing!”
    Mart, out of sheer joy at the news, turned cartwheel after cartwheel down the concrete drive.
    At Trixie’s words he stopped, dusted himself off, and stamped his foot, frustrated. “Why am I so steamed up? I won’t be old enough to drive for another year. But, say—” he grinned impishly—“I sure can order my own limousine.”
    He turned to Jim, opened the station wagon’s rear door with a flourish, stepped in, and commanded, “Home, James!”
    The others laughed delightedly, ran around the car, patted it, and exclaimed, hardly daring to believe this glorious car could really be their very own.
    Reddy, the Beldens’ Irish setter, who had followed them from home, raced madly around the Bob-Whites, then skidded suddenly to a stop, tail wagging, wondering about the excitement and loving it all.
    “Let’s take a spin down Glen Road,” Trixie called, “and sound the horn all the way. Beep! Beep! Honk! Honk! Come on, gang. Who’ll drive, Jim or Brian?”
    You drive,” Jim told his friend generously and opened the door to the driver's seat.
    “Nope... you“ Brian protested. “I have to wheel my old jalopy out of the drive, anyway.”
    He gave his old car a loving push, remembering the agony they all went through to earn the fifty dollars it had cost months before. “We’ll have to stop at Di’s, then hunt up Dan and tell him. Hi, Regan!”
    Regan, the Wheelers’ groom and one of the Bob-Whites’ very best friends, came out of the stable and over to the station