The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

went on warmly. “Then maybe you would have stayed at our home. Jim would have liked that.”
    “I hope you would have liked it, too, Honey. Mrs. Vanderpoel has been very kind.” Juliana smiled at her hostess. “And I shall see you all often, I hope.”
    “I’m glad as can be to have her here with me,” Mrs. Vanderpoel said. “You know how I miss Spider and Tad Webster. Spider was a policeman in Sleepyside,” she explained to Juliana. “Tad is his young brother. I felt so secure when they were here. Then Spider accepted a better position in White Plains. Jim must tell you sometime how Spider helped all of us when the Bob-Whites had their antique show for UNICEF.”
    “Yes, I’d like to hear about it. In the morning, Cousin Jim, do you think you could take me to the courthouse? There are papers there to sign. I’m sorry I do not have a car----”
    “Did something happen to it?” Trixie asked. “Mrs. Hendricks said you drove your own car.”
    “Oh, yes, this Mrs. Hendricks—she forgot, or did not know, that I put my car in storage and came here by bus. I shall also take the bus when I go to join my friends. Then I can drive back with them, see?”
    “Sure,” Jim said quickly. “I'll be glad to drive you anywhere you want to go while you’re here. You just say the word.”
    They chatted awhile longer, then Jim renewed his offer to drive his cousin, and they left.
    “Wowiel” Mart said as they drove home. “ ‘Sure, I’ll be glad to drive you anywhere, Cousin Juliana,’ ” he mimicked Jim. “Who wouldn’t be? Boy, is she ever neat! A dream from Dreamsville.”
    “She’s beautiful—and so friendly.” Honey sighed. “I hope she stays a long, long time.”

A Victim of Amnesia • 7

    THE NEXT MORNING, as she was dressing, Trixie called to her mother, “Do you know what happened to my white stockings?” She slipped her red and white Candy Striper pinafore over a crisp white blouse.
    “They’re with the other stockings in the laundry basket,” Mrs. Belden answered, stopping in the doorway. “The stockings and socks you were supposed to sort and put away.”
    “Oh, Moms, I did forget. I’ve had a million things to think about lately. Moms—”
    “Yes?”
    “Jim’s cousin is one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw, and so nice. No wonder Mrs. Schimmel was fond of her, especially when she practically raised her. She wears her hair straight back from her forehead, like this.” Trixie struggled to straighten her unruly short curls. “I wish I had been born with straight hair. The only place curly hair looks good is on poodles.”
    T like your hair the way it is. Here are your stockings. I’ll ask Bobby to sort the rest of them. You’d better run now. Honey will be waiting for you.”
    “We’re taking our bikes. I’ll probably stop at Honey’s house on the way back, that is if the other Bob-Whites are there. ’Bye, Moms!”
    It was a lovely, crisp, sunny morning in late summer. Sumac was just beginning to redden around the edges—the first reminder, Trixie thought, that summer was waning and soon junior-senior high would begin its fall semester.
    Her thoughts raced on as she pedaled her way along Glen Road. At the turn near Manor House, she met Jim just leaving in the station wagon. He was going to pick up Juliana, she knew. They would go on to the courthouse to look after his cousin’s business.
    There wasn’t another person in the world like Jim. He never once even thought of the large sum of money that would have been his if Juliana hadn’t shown up. Trixie was sure of this. Money didn’t seem to mean a thing to him. He’d even forgotten the half million dollars his great-uncle had left him. Well, maybe he hadn’t forgotten it, but certainly he never thought of using it for anything except the school for runaway boys he planned for the future, when he had finished college.
    Trixie thought of the frightened runaway Jim himself had been when she and Honey first found him hiding in the old abandoned mansion that had belonged to his great-uncle. He was hiding from that Jones man, his stepfather. It was terrible that anyone could have been as mean as his stepfather had been to Jim— especially Jim. He was just the greatest.
    So engrossed was Trixie in the memory of that unhappy time that she bumped her bike into the veranda step at Manor House and almost fell.
    Honey, waiting in her Candy Striper uniform, ran to help her. “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.