The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

out of danger, someway.”
    “Maybe she does, but I keep thinking the time will come when she won’t. I suppose you and Spider had a big fun time talking over all that’s happened.”
    “We did,” Trixie said. “I told him all about the things that are puzzling us and all about Janie.” Mrs. Belden looked at Janie and saw her face sadden. “Did he have any suggestions to make?”
    “Not a thing,” Honey said. “He wanted to. He even went with us up to the trail in the woods. He thought he might possibly find some kind of a clue. He didn’t, though. The men were working there on the fence Daddy ordered them to build. All Spider turned up was an old, half-filled tobacco can... ugh!”
    Trixie shuddered, too, at the memory of that awful-smelling tobacco... and something else. Where did I smell that very same smell? Someplace before the Bronx. Where was it? It was someplace I hated. I was afraid .... “What did you say, Moms?” Mrs. Belden busied herself clearing up the dishes they had used, rinsing them, setting them aside to be washed in the morning. “I said we’d better all make this an early-to-bed night. Skip along, Bobby. I don’t think anyone in this house slept well last night, after that terrible day we had.”
    “We’ll go in a minute, Moms,” Mart said. “I just want Janie to pick out the melody of that song she sang. I don’t mean the King Arthur one—the other one.” Mart hummed. “I was trying to remember it at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s.” He went ahead of Janie into the living room and handed her his guitar. “How did it go, Janie?”
    “I’ll just play the tune on one string. It’ll be easier for you to remember if I don’t chord it. Listen, Mart. It’s in F sharp:

“ ‘Down in the churchyard,
All covered with snow,
My true love’s a-lying.
Hang your head low.
Mourn for my true love,
Under the snow,
Mourn for my sweet love.
Hang your head low.’ ”

    Mr. Belden looked up from his newspaper. “Can’t you think of something less mournful?” Mart hummed, trying to harmonize with Janie.
    “What did you say, Dad? Oh, blast! There’s the telephone.”
    “I’ll get it,” Brian called.
    Trixie could hear his voice on the kitchen extension. He must be talking to Jim. Something was “swell.”
    “What was it?” she asked Brian when he came into the room. “What was so swell?”
    “It was Jim. When he took Spider back to the police station, where he’d left his patrol car, Jim saw Sergeant Molinson just leaving. He said he guessed Jim’s cousin was happy now, since those papers she’d been waiting for so long had arrived and she had finished her business at the courthouse.”
    “Gol... I’m sure glad for her,” Mart said. “I guess I’m glad for everyone concerned. But, say... that’s funny....”
    “What’s funny, Mart?” Janie asked and put down the guitar.
    “We saw her just a short time ago at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s... Juliana....”
    “We did,” Trixie cried, “and she didn’t say one thing about getting those papers.”
    “Maybe she didn’t know it then,” Brian said. Mart jumped up from his chair. “Hey, maybe she didn’t. Trixie, why don’t you go and call her?”
    “At this hour?” Mrs. Belden asked.
    “She knew it, all right,” Trixie said. “I’m not going to call her and get squelched. Don’t you remember how she was so high-hat and said she was ‘going to my room’? If she’d wanted us to know, she’d have said so. She sure blows hot and cold.”
    “Remember about the dolls,” Honey said. “That’s the only ‘blowing hot’ she’s done that I can remember. I can remember plenty of ‘blowing cold’ times— Why do you suppose Reddy is barking so much?”
    “He’s off on a rabbit’s trail,” Mr. Belden said.
    “I guess I’m jittery,” Trixie said. “Honey, shall we go to bed? You aren’t the only one who’s yawning. Look at Brian!”
    In her room, Trixie turned on the pink-shaded lights on her dressing table and found a pair of pajamas for Honey.
    “These are your best ones!” Honey protested. “So what? You’re my best friend.”
    “Okay, as long as you put it that way.... Trixie?”
    “Yes?”
    “I wish I could warm up to Juliana more. I can’t. Can you?”
    “Huh-uh.” Trixie stopped brushing her short curls. “I can’t. Every time I think she’s getting a little human, she does an about-face. Why do you suppose she didn’t tell us that she had heard from Holland?”
    “I don’t know. She