The Mystery of the Uninvited Ghost

subject. “Did you see what it was carrying?” Nobody had noticed.
    “Bicycles,” Hallie said. “Lots of them, and they didn’t look new.”
    “What!” Jim jumped up. “Let’s go!”
    The Bob-Whites made a pell-mell dash for the station wagon.
    Two blocks from Wimpy’s, the Teed track had stopped at the bottom of a slope for a red light. When the light changed, Jim saw which direction the truck headed and followed it as fast as the speed limit allowed. His passengers kept track of the pickup as it moved through traffic.
    When they found themselves on the White Plains highway, Trixie asked anxiously, “Do we have enough gas?”
    “I just filled up,” Jim said. “I can go as far as he can, and I can use a credit card to get home.”
    On the open road at last, Jim was able to pass enough cars to come within easy view of the Teed truck. It was a pickup with a boxlike frame added to carry bulky but lightweight freight. Bicycles standing in neat rows were clearly visible.
    Unexpectedly, the truck turned off on a two-lane road. Now the group began to worry about the wild-goose chase they might be on. Within a mile or two, something new was added along the roadside. Hand-lettered signs appeared that read, yard sale, bikes, trikes, scooters, wagons, straight ahead!
    The Teed truck stopped at an ordinary-looking country home. A banner stretched across the front porch proclaimed that yard to be the site of the sale. Several cars were parked in the driveway and along the edges of the road.
    “Customers already!” Trixie gasped.
    “There must have been an ad in the paper,” Honey said, “or they wouldn’t have known when and where to come.”
    Jim parked at an angle behind the pickup. When Di told him that the truck wouldn’t be able to get out, Jim grinned. “That’s the idea, Di. Come on. Let’s mingle while they unload.”
    The driver was the same talkative man who had lost the wheelchair. A second man hopped from the truck and began to help unload the bicycles. Jim scowled. “There’s Dad’s bike.”
    “Mine, tool” Honey said.
    “And there’s Bobby’s scooter!” Trixie exploded. “The twins’ wagons,” Di added, then gasped, “and our furniture!” The bicycles had hidden the neatly packed furniture that was now being unloaded.
    “Ssh!” Brian warned. “These people may be in cahoots with the thieves. We’ve got to get to a phone and call Sergeant Molinson.”
    “It’s out of his district,” Mart objected.
    Trixie argued, “He’ll tell us what to do!”
    “I can’t use the phone here,” Jim said. “I’ll have to go back to that house we just passed. Cause any kind of commotion you have to, but don’t let anyone buy anything!”
    Jim walked down the road while the Bob-Whites moved among the stolen items. Each time a customer became interested in an article, a Bob-White crowded forward to examine it, too. It became impossible for the customers to concentrate on buying.
    Under the banner on the porch, a teen-ager sat at a table with a cash till ready for use. He wore cowboy boots. Anxiously Trixie kept watch to see if anybody else wore the high-heeled boots, but she saw no one who did. She kept a firm grip on Bobby’s scooter, even when a red-faced young mother tried to buy it for her whining five-year-old.
    The crowd was getting cranky, and so was the pickup driver. “Oh, boy! Oh, boy!” Hallie gasped. “We're in everybody’s hair. Cap and Knut will never believe this.”
    The Teed man, having unloaded his freight, tried to get out of the driveway. When he backed up his truck, the station wagon’s nose was against the truck bed. When he tried to move forward to circle the house, other cars and Hallie on a bicycle blocked the way.
    The driver pleaded. He argued, and he yelled. “Look, sis, I gotta get back on the job! I gotta punch a time clock, see? Say, don’t I know you? I’ve seen you someplace!”
    Brian managed to be here, there, and everywhere, and so did Mart. They were so “helpful” that a fat woman in slacks complained loudly, “I never heard of such a mismanaged yard sale! Here come the police. It’s about time!”
    “Good!” Trixie shouted to Honey. “Jim’s with them, so they’re on our side.”
    “We hope!” Honey retorted.
    Two policemen came up the drive with Jim. They blew their whistles and shouted, “Nobody’s to leave the yard!”
    Trixie saw the booted teen-ager try to slip inside the house, and she shrieked, “He’s getting