The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

happily.
    As the car disappeared down Glen Road, Trixie drew a little notebook from her pocket. “Now, food first. We’ll get it at Mr. Lytell’s grocery. Miss Trask always wants us to buy all the groceries we can from him.”
    “Yeah.” Mart grinned. “I think she and Mr. Ly-tell are sorta—”
    “Of course they like one another,” Honey said, bristling, “and they have for a long time. What of it?”
    “Not a thing. Not a thing,” Mart said airily. “If she doesn’t mind how cranky he gets and thinks he s the Apollo Belvedere, it’s okay with me. I say it’s okay.”
    “Boy, I’ll never forget how he was so patient with me when I wanted to buy my jalopy,” Brian said.
    Mr. Lytell is an oddball,” Mart said, tongue in cheek, “but he’s all heart. He’s all heart!”
    Trixie wrote “hamburger” and repeated it out loud. Then she went on. “Pickles. Potato Chips. Lemonade mix.”
    “Cokes!” Mart said. “Say, why do we buy all this stuff? Moms always has the freezer full of hamburger, don’t you, Moms?”
    “Of course I do,” Mrs. Belden said as she came into the kitchen. “I’ll fix a salad and bake a cake. Anyone want baked beans?”
    “Nix on the hamburger,” Jim said, “and pickles, potato chips, and other stuff. This is a Bob-White party, and we’ll use our funds. It’s okay on the cake, though, Mrs. Belden.”
    “I'll fix the salad, too, and the baked beans,” Mrs. Belden said, laughing. “You’ll want to invite Juliana, won’t you?”
    “Sure!” Brian said heartily. “We’ll stop at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house when we go to the store. I sure hope she’s heard something from Holland.”
    When they stopped, Juliana said yes, she’d love to go to the party, and no, she hadn’t heard anything from The Hague. “Time’s getting shorter and shorter, too.” Her voice sharpened.
    “Oh, well, don’t fret,” Mrs. Vanderpoel told her. “It’ll come in time for you to join your friends, I know. I wish there was something I could send for the party. There’re cookies, of course. Janie does like my cookies. I’ll send some with Juliana when she goes.”
    “Where next?” Jim asked as he backed out of the drive.
    “The record shop,” Mart said. “There’s one I’ve got to have. The Kelpies—they’re English. They have a flamenco guitarist who’s something.”
    “We want dance records, mostly,” Trixie said. “Just who dances the flamenco? Oh, figure that one out yourself. Honey and Di and I have to list the treasures to be found in the hunt. Let’s have suggestions.”
    “ ‘Eye of newt’ and ‘toe of frog,’ ” Mart sang out.
    “ ‘Wool of bat’ and ‘tongue of dog,’ ” Jim put in.
    Laughter from the backseat rewarded them as the car moved on to Sleepyside.
    “If it’s that good!” Mart snorted.
    “It is!” Honey insisted as Trixie added “candy wrapper” to a growing list: light bulb, horseshoe, fresh egg, yellow rose, old glove, five green mulberries, apple core, dog bone.

    At a little after six, Miss Trask let Bobby and Janie out at the drive, with Reddy bounding after them.
    “I heard a record going way down the road!” Bobby cried. Then the little boy’s eyes grew big as he glanced from lanterns to red-checked cloth on the picnic table. “Who’s having a party?”
    “Surprise for Janie!” the Bob-Whites called.
    They joined hands with Juliana in a circle around her. “Surprise for Janie!”
    Janie, confused for a moment, suddenly clapped her hands, eyes dancing. “This is fun!”
    “You stay, too, won’t you, Miss Trask?” Trixie asked.
    The slender, gray-haired woman demurred, then, as the boys shouted, “Yeah, Miss Trask! Yeah, Miss Trask!” she weakened and busied herself helping Mrs. Belden in the kitchen.
    It wasn’t long till Mr. Belden called from the barbecue, “Soup’s on!” and there was a rush for the picnic table.
    The mound of hamburgers disappeared to the accompaniment of laughter, jokes, and teasing. Casseroles were scraped to the last bite, and cake and cookies disappeared.
    The sun dropped in the western sky. Even Reddy stopped begging for handouts, and the Bob-Whites and their guests, groaning, pushed back from the table.
    The treasure hunt started. Brian, the leader, read off the list of treasures. “Everyone is to go by himself—no teamwork. The first one back with the whole list—the entire list—gets a pocket transistor, gift of Diana’s father, and it’s a honey. Now,