The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

accident. “Can someone ‘cue me in.’ ”
    In chronological order, then, the Bob-Whites told the whole sordid story as far as they knew it.
    As they neared the end, the telephone rang.
    Trixie answered. It was the sheriff. She talked for a minute, then turned to the listeners.
    “He says he has a couple of interesting customers in jail—Jones and his niece. Spider Webster helped bring them in. He saw the green Buick parked in White Plains. The sheriff is getting a tape recording of their story. The girl was sullen and clammed up, hasn’t said a word. Jones was mouthy, as usual. The sheriff wants to know if we’d like to listen in on a playback of the tape about an hour from now, when he’s hustled them off to maximum security. People in Sleepyside are pretty well worked up. Spider and Sergeant Molinson’s men have jailed Snipe Thompson, his wife, and his nephew for questioning. Shall I say we’ll be down there in about an hour?”
    “Right!” the Bob-Whites agreed.
    “Moms, I’m hungry!” Bobby cried and wondered why everyone laughed.
    “Come to think of it, fella, so am I,” Brian told his little brother. “Moms?”
    “I know.” Mrs. Belden hurried to the kitchen. “Hamburgers for everyone. Hans must be very hungry.”
    Hans, deep in low conversation with Janie, didn’t answer.
    Sometime later, in the sheriff’s office, the Bob-Whites, with Janie and Hans, watched the deputy slip in the tape and adjust the recorder, heard the sheriffs questions, and listened to Jim’s stepfather's answers.
    They heard him tell of seeing the story in the New York newspaper and remembering that his wife’s sister had been named Betje Maasden. If this were true, he had thought, he might be in for some big money out of the deal.
    Disguising his voice, he had tried to make a call to Jim to verify the name. Failing to reach Jim, he’d hung around the marsh, trying to pump some information out of the workers there. They had run him out. Then he went to the courthouse and tried to put in a claim, but they told him they wouldn’t make a move till they had more information.
    So he watched the Sleepyside newspaper for more news and learned of Mrs. Schimmel’s letter from Holland and of the little Juliana’s survival after her mother and father had been drowned. He learned, too, that the girl, now grown up, was in the Bronx at the De Jong home, and that if she made a claim for the land, she would inherit it.
    Fortunately, his niece—
    “This is where the phony Juliana comes in,” Trixie whispered to Jim.
    “Shhh!” he answered. “Listen to the tape.”
    “... impersonate her,” the tape continued. Jim’s stepfather’s voice droned on sullenly, while he explained how he planned to kidnap the girl and substitute his niece for her.
    He’d gone to the Bronx ahead of the Bob-Whites, and, though Juliana had left there, he hid in the shrubbery, learned that she had been driving a blue Volkswagen, and heard Honey tell the neighbor of the route the Bob-Whites would follow going back to Sleepyside. It was okay with him when they went into the neighbor’s house for Cokes and cookies, because it gave him a chance to vandalize the station wagon and get a head start on the trail of Juliana.
    He had only intended to waylay her, kidnap her, and hold her captive at Mrs. Thompson s house, then substitute his niece until the deal was concluded and the money paid.
    However, Juliana s car had hit a tree. When she was knocked out, he had thought she was dead.
    So he took her car and all her identification and hid out at Snipe Thompson’s, and his niece took over. She was a pretty good actress, wasn’t she?
    “No, she wasn’t,” Trixie said out loud. “I should have known she couldn’t possibly be Jim’s cousin and be so mean. I’ll bet she never made but one doll... just to throw us off.”
    “Shhhh!”
    When he learned the girl wasn’t dead, but only unconscious, and that she had lost her memory, he still went ahead with his plan, hoping time would be on his side and the money his before she recovered her memory.
    “You even tried murder twice,” the sheriff’s voice cut in, contemptuously.
    “If it had to be. Time was getting short,” Jones answered. “A hundred and a half grand ain’t picked up on just any old street. I’d have gotten away with it, too, if that outfit that call themselves the ‘Bob-Whites’—and mostly that girl Trixie Belden—hadn’t been in my hair.
    “Snipe and I had a good