The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

as housekeeper at Manor House and of pinch-hitting as mother for Honey and Jim. All the Bob-Whites were devoted to her. She disciplined, but she didn’t snoop. She listened but found little fault. Why, she made almost as good a mother as Trixie’s own.

    At the top of the cliff, Trixie and Honey stood looking back down below. The men were still busy dredging and sampling. Trixie’s face clouded as the Bob-Whites started back to the horses and Manor House. That man—what was it about him that....

    “Stay with me tonight,” Honey begged. “My mom is away, as usual, and we have so much to talk over.”
    “I shouldn’t,” Trixie said, hesitating. “I’m always getting out of chores at home. Mom never says a thing, but she does depend on me to watch Bobby. He can get into more mischief.”
    “It won t be quite so much work for her if you and Brian and Mart stay for dinner at our house. Stay, please. Miss Trask will call your mother.”
    “And Moms will say yes. She never thinks about herself. No, Honey, I have a better idea. Moms has to get dinner for Bobby and Daddy, anyway. She doesn’t mind more people. You and Jim come to dinner at our house. Before we left tins morning, Brian and Mart and I gathered the eggs and brought in vegetables from the garden—tomatoes, green beans, green cabbage, and some late lettuce. If I run on home now and help, we’ll have a sort of picnic supper.”
    “I’ll love it. So will Jim. But you’ll have to promise to stay with me tonight, anyway. Let me go home with you now and help. I can at least read to Bobby.”
    “And who, pray, will groom the horses?” Mart asked.
    “And clean the tack?” Jim added.
    “I told the girls I’d help groom the horses if you kids would exercise them,” Regan said and took Susie’s and Lady’s reins.
    “That simplifies matters,” Jim said. “Mart and Brian and I will help Regan make short work of things here at the stable. You girls help Mrs. Belden. We’ll drive our car after dinner. It’s too bad Di and Dan went home, but we can call them.”
    “Perfect!” Trixie said. “We’ll pick them up in the new Bob-White bus after dinner. Maybe we can all go to the movie in Sleepyside after we wash the dishes. Moms won’t mind if we have dinner early, just as soon as Daddy gets home from the bank. We did agree to use Bob-White funds for a once-a-month movie, didn’t we?”
    “Right,” Mart said. “And what better way to christen the new car? There’s a western at the Cameo— Every once in a while my poor little sister comes up with an idea that’s a bell ringer.”
    “Once in a while is better than never,” Trixie retorted archly. Then they both laughed. They were so near the same age that they constantly baited one another. But let an outsider say anything critical about either one, and watch the fur fly!

    The next morning Jim, Brian, and Mart had parked the station wagon in front of the Bob-White clubhouse. Jim was on his knees, painstakingly sketching the words BOB-WHITES OF THE GLEN, to be filled in later with bright red enamel, when Trixie came flying down the driveway from Manor House, followed by Honey.
    “Jim,” she shouted, “who is Betje Maasden?”
    “Who’s who? What?” Jim asked, startled, as Mart accidentally touched the horn.
    “If Mart will keep still a minute, I’ll explain. Someone called at your house just now. I answered the telephone, because nobody else seemed to be doing it. A gruff, mysterious voice asked for you.”
    “ Everything is mysterious to Trixie,” Mart said. “Well, I keep thinking about that man I saw yesterday,” Trixie answered, keeping her eyes on Jim.
    “Of all the unmysterious things that could happen!” Mart gibed. “The poor guy was probably just curious. All you saw of him was his back, anyway.”
    “It was a mysterious back.” Trixie shivered.
    “I give up,” Mart hooted. “Do I have a mysterious back, Mrs. Sherlock Holmes?” He struck a pose.
    “You couldn’t be mysterious if you tried,” Trixie retorted. “You just talk too much. That man was sort of strange. Jim said he shivered, too, when he saw him.”
    “Jim would agree with you if you said you saw a dinosaur disappearing into the shrubbery. That doesn’t prove anything.”
    “Let’s get this show back on the road, Mart,” Jim broke in. “What did you tell the man on the phone, Trix?”
    “I said you weren’t there—and could I take a message? He said yes, if I thought I had sense