The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

sidewalk on Glen Road, either—not even a footpath.”
    “The police said she might have been injured someplace else and dropped off near Ten Acres,” Honey said. “It’ll be in die paper this evening, I suppose. That’s the trouble when a newspaper doesn’t come out every day. News is usually a day old before it’s published in the Sun.”
    “The girl seemed so nervous and looked so white,” Trixie said. “Imagine not remembering your own name.”
    “Did she remember other things?” Juliana asked. “Like what?” Trixie asked.
    “Who her friends were. How the accident happened. Anything.”
    “She doesn’t remember a thing about any accident, and she hasn’t the slightest idea what she was doing in Sleepyside. She doesn’t remember ever having heard of our town before. She seems well educated, and the nurse said the clothes she wore were pretty.”
    “Leave it to Detective Belden to find out all the details,” Mart teased.
    “Detective?” Juliana asked. “Detective Belden? Is your father a detective?”
    “Nope,” Mart answered, “Trixie is—and Honey. They’re the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency; at least they expect to be, when they’re older.”
    “I see,” Juliana said with a sigh, “just kid stuff.” She looked narrowly at Trixie. “You do seem to have a way of ferreting things out.”
    “It’s not kidd stuff,’ ” Mart corrected her. He was swift to spring to his sister's defense, just as he was quick to tease and needle her. “Several pretty important cases would have gone unsolved if Trixie and Honey hadn’t helped the police and federal agents. They’ve even won cash awards for our Bob-White club fund.”
    Juliana smiled indulgently. “I’m sure that must be so. Miss Trask, have you known of this agency?”
    “I surely have,” Miss Trask said firmly. “I’ve not only known about it, but I’ve also been right there with the girls several times when they have unraveled a really difficult mystery—the jewel robbery in New York, for instance. I’ve seen them in operation. 1 don’t make fun of them.”
    Hurrah for Miss Trask, Trixie thought. She never let the Bob-Whites down. Juliana didn’t have to be so sarcastic, either. Oh, well, maybe she hadn’t meant it that way. Other people hadn’t been too impressed, either, with a detective agency made up of two young girls—until they came bang up against some of their achievements. Sergeant Molinson, head of the Sleepyside police, was still sarcastic, and he had reason to know better.
    “I didn’t intend to make fun of them,” Juliana said, so humbly that everyone forgave her. “And I think it is very unselfish of the girls to do volunteer work at the hospital. I’ll have time on my hands until that letter comes through from Holland. Maybe there’s something I can do. Do you think that I might go to the hospital to see this girl? What do they call her, since she can’t remember her name?”
    “Janie,” Trixie said. “Dr. Gregory and the nurses gave her the name. It seems to fit her, even though she shakes her head and says she’s sure it isn’t her name. But, Juliana, I really can’t think of anything you could do at the hospital in the short time that you’ll be here.”
    “Couldn’t I take her some flowers?” Juliana suggested. “Maybe read to your Janie?”
    “I don’t see why not,” Honey answered. “Do you, Trixie?”
    “She can read, herself,” Trixie said. “There’s nothing the matter with her mind, they told us. You might visit Janie, though,” she added quickly, “if it’s all right. We’ll have to ask at the hospital.”

    The girls did inquire and were assured by the head nurse that Janie seemed lonely and restless, and that it might do her good to have visitors.
    So the next day, her arms full of roses from the
    Manor House garden, Juliana went to Sleepyside Hospital with the girls. Jim drove them.
    They found Janie sitting by herself on a chintz-covered sofa in the pleasant solarium on the second floor.
    Sure that Mrs. Wheeler would have wanted her to do so, and urged on by Honey, Miss Trask had thoughtfully provided needed clothing for Janie. The girl made a pretty picture in a leaf-green linen dress which accentuated her lovely blond hair, close-cropped by the doctor to make way for the white bandage wound round her head.
    She looked up expectantly as the three girls greeted her.
    “This is Juliana Maasden,” Honey told her. “She is my brother’s cousin. She