The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

next to Jim, ordered, “To the bank first! Oh, I hope we’re in time! Wait for me!”
    In a few minutes she was back, her face grim with disappointment.
    “Juliana cashed that check for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars less than an hour ago. She had to have made arrangements days ago for that big a sum of money to be ready. How dumb I’ve been!”
    “So that’s what my stepfather has been hanging around this vicinity for. Trust him to try to get in on that kind of money! He may even have kidnapped Juliana!”
    Trixie didn’t answer. “To the sheriff’s office now, please, Jim,” she directed. She stopped but a moment there, ran out, jumped back into the car, and said, “To the bus station now, please, Jim. Keep the engine running, and I’ll go in and meet Hans.”
    “You?” Mart asked. “What’s all the high-handed business about, Trixie? Don’t you think we’re smart enough to be in on it?”
    “Mart,” Trixie begged, “for a little while longer, please trust me. I don’t have time to say anything else, but I’m right! I know I’m right! You wait and see. Now, Jim, park right here and keep the engine running. I hope Hans is on that bus that just arrived. Keep your fingers crossed!” Trixie was out of the car like a flash.
    In a few minutes she came back with a tall, handsome, blond young man.
    “This is Hans,” she explained and motioned him into the seat next to Jim. Then she crowded in after him.
    “Whirl around, Jim, and go back to our house!”
    “Our house?” Mart asked, bewildered.
    “Oh, Mart,” Trixie begged. “Our house,” she repeated to Jim, “and fast!”
    Jim stepped on the gas, backed around, and was off. Trixie, from the front seat, tried to introduce the Bob-Whites to the dazed young man from Holland. Then, when he didn’t seem to be making sense out of anything, she shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of frustration and said, “Wait! That’s all I ask of any of you. Wait! In about three minutes you’ll know the score.”
    Up the road the Bob-White station wagon flew, turned into the driveway at Crabapple Farm, and screamed to a stop.
    Mr. and Mrs. Belden and Bobby, with Reddy at his heels, ran out. Janie followed slowly.
    Trixie got out of the front seat. The young man from Holland followed.
    When Janie saw him, a blazing smile swept over her face. With a cry of joy she rushed into his arms. “Hans!”
    “Juliana!”
    Hans caught her close to him, spun her off the ground, set her back on her feet, looked at her searchingly, and asked, “Juliana, why didn’t you write to me? I was crazy with worry. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to come to the States to find out what kept you from writing. Why didn’t you write, Juliana?”
    “ Juliana ?” Jim echoed. “She’s Juliana?”
    “Juliana?” the confused Bob-Whites repeated, looking to Trixie for an answer. “Janie is Juliana?” Exultant, clapping her hands, Trixie nodded toward Hans and Janie. “Just listen to what she’s saying,” she cried. “She is Juliana. She’s been Juliana all the time. She’s telling him about her accident on Glen Road and how she lost her memory. Listen! Janie's memory has come back!”

Janie Remembers! • 18

    IN THE LIVING ROOM, with the Bob-Whites, Trixie s mother and father, and Bobby listening, Janie told Hans her story.
    “I wrote to you from the De Jongs’ home about seeing my mother’s name in a newspaper article. It told of some land in Sleepyside, owned by Betje Maasden, my mother. I was all ready to go to the Poconos with the De Jong family for a vacation. Instead of going with them, I decided to go first to Sleepyside, find out about the land, then join them later.”
    “You didn’t write me about your change of plans, Juliana,” Hans said. “The last I heard from you was the letter about the article in the New York City newspaper.”
    “I didn’t write because I fully expected to send a letter to you from Sleepyside and tell you what I had discovered here.”
    “When I didn’t hear, and didn’t hear... oh, Juliana, I’ve been desperate. I tried calling on the transcontinental telephone, but there was no answer.” Hans’s voice was troubled. “Your wrist is bandaged! Your face is scratched. Did you fall?” Trixie sat on the edge of her chair, listening. This is Janie remembering! she thought.
    “I drove my own car, my blue Volkswagen,” Janie hurried on, aware of Hans’s concern. “It was when I reached the outskirts of