The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

now.”
    “You can say that again,” Dan agreed. “He didn’t think we were imagining things, especially Trixie and Honey, the way Sergeant Molinson does.” ‘“Yeah,” Jim said. “You’d think he’d learn sometime, wouldn’t you? The number of times Trixie has solved his cases for him!”

The Warning Signs are Gone! • 12

    MOMS, where’s Janie?”
    Trixie, in her Candy Striper uniform, came racing down the stairs.
    Mrs. Belden put a sheet of cookies in the oven, closed the door, and answered, “I do wish you wouldn’t run everyplace, Trixie. Can’t you ever walk down the stairs?”
    “I'll try. But where’s Janie? Look at the time... almost one o’clock. Jim and Honey will stop by for me in a minute. He’s taking us to the hospital today, because the brake on Honey’s bike has to be fixed. Where is Janie, Moms?”
    “I don’t ask Janie to register in and out, dear. I imagine she’s in the garden. Or have you looked in her room?”
    T just called down the hall. Didn’t you hear me? We’ll be late at the hospital if she doesn’t show up. If we’re late we’ll get demerits and spoil everything. She’s supposed to be here.”
    “Why is Janie supposed to be here now?”
    “She wanted to go to the hospital with us, to visit with the nurses and maybe Dr. Gregory. It was the last thing she said last night. I haven’t even seen her since breakfast, have you?”
    “Yes... let me think... she wanted to help me with the baking, and I told her I had almost finished, and then—dear me, Trixie, I don’t remember what she said then. I think she said she was going to take a walk. She spends a lot of time in the woods. Just be a little patient; she’ll be here.”
    “She’d better hurry. Jim and Honey are stopping the station wagon out there right now. She’s forgotten, that’s what. She’s forgotten all about it. Oh, well, she’ll have to go with us another day. Bye, Moms.” At the door Trixie met Honey coming in. “Why, Honey, what’s the matter?”
    Honey threw herself down on a chair in the kitchen.
    “Jim has me worried, and I’d like to hear what your mom thinks about it. He says he shouldn’t have left Juliana last night till he was sure she was safe in the house. He didn’t like that business of that green Buick out in front of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house. He didn’t like it at all. He says he should have found out who it was.”
    “Oh, Juliana probably had a date with someone. She’s over twenty-one. Why was he so bothered? What did he do about it?” said Mrs. Belden.
    “This morning he went over to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s. He wanted to make sure Juliana was all right. She is his cousin, after all. And she doesn’t have any friends in Sleepyside—at least, we didn’t think she had.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Just this: Juliana wasn’t home, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning. Mrs. Vanderpoel said she had gone out, that someone had called her and she left.”
    “Was it a man or a woman?”
    “That’s what Jim asked, and Mrs. Vanderpoel said she didn’t know, because Juliana answered the telephone. I don’t think we need to worry about any lack of friends for Juliana. Mrs. Vanderpoel said she always gets to the telephone first to answer it and that ninety-nine percent of the calls are for her.”
    Trixie nodded her head. “Of course, she is awfully attractive, and she did live for a long time in the Bronx. She probably knows a lot of people there. It isn’t so far away.”
    “That isn’t all,” Honey went on. “Mrs. Vanderpoel told Jim our party must have lasted pretty late last night, because Juliana still hadn’t come home at one o’clock in the morning.”
    “Well, see? She went someplace with that man in the green Buick,” Trixie said.
    “I think I may have to remind you, Honey, of the same thing I spoke to Trixie about,” Mrs. Belden said. “She’s been worried because Janie isn’t here to go to the hospital with you, and Jim is concerned about Juliana’s actions. Both of these girls are over twenty-one, and I don’t imagine they want anyone to monitor their movements. In a way, I think it s rather funny.”
    “What’s funny?” Jim asked from the doorway. “I didn’t know you were going to make a visit here, Honey. It’s time we were moving. Say, what’s so funny, Mrs. Belden?”
    “The fact that ever since each one of you has passed from twelve to teen, Brian and Mart, too, your greatest obsession has been: