The Mystery of the Uninvited Ghost

why I came.”
    “Really?” Trixie gulped. Tm sorry I was rough on you.“
    “If you think you’re rough, you should try living with Cap Belden,” Hallie retorted. “Come on. Let’s get up. Breakfast smells good.”
    At the breakfast table, Mr. Belden tapped the newspaper. “The Teed people are cleared of any guilt in the matter of transporting stolen goods. They simply took an order over the phone.”
    Trixie slid into her chair and picked up her napkin. “I never did think that driver was a thief. He talks too much. He couldn’t keep a secret if he tried.” She heaved a sigh up from her very toes. “I thought Juliana’s wedding day would be the happiest day of the whole summer. Now look at it! That gang and their boss are out there somewhere, and Dan’s missing.”
    “Yes, look at it!” Mrs. Belden lilted. “Bobby’s safe. You’re safe. The weather’s perfect. There’s not a cloud in the sky. It won’t rain on all those beautiful dresses and flowers and—”
    “And guests?” Brian prompted. He glanced up at the clock. “Hey, Hallie, see what time it is! We have
    to pick up the Bob-Whites’ gift at the jewelers in an hour.”
    The Bob-Whites had chosen to give Juliana and Hans a silver music box engraved with all their names. Its cost had drained the treasury, but nobody minded.
    “It’s a long time till the wedding,” Hallie told Brian. “A lot can happen before four-thirty.”
    “‘Friday, the sixth of August, at half after four o’clock,’ ” Mark intoned in a poetry-reading voice.
    “ ‘Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore,” ’ ” Hallie quoted impishly.
    Trixie frowned. “Don’t say that, Hallie. I never did like that raven.”
    “Honey called,” Mrs. Belden told Trixie. “She’s expecting all of you early.”
    “No problem, Auntie,” Hallie said. “Were all taken care of. Baths, hair, fingernails, toenails—the works.”
    “Hallie, you wouldn’t dare wear that green stuff on your toenails to a wedding!” Trixie shouted.
    “Want to bet?” Hallie drawled and left the kitchen on the run.
    Trixie leaped up to wrestle Hallie to a couch, shouting, “Bobby, help me! Untie Hallie’s sneaker and see if her toes are green!”
    In the noisy scramble that followed, Bobby removed Hallie’s shoe. “Huh! They’re just like everybody else’s toes,” he grumbled.
    “What’s the matter with that?” Brian teased.
    “I wanted ’em to be green, like usual,” Bobby said. The romp dispelled some of Trixie’s uneasiness. Ordinarily, she would have told Honey all the details about last night’s ordeal, but when she reached Manor House, she couldn’t bear to spoil one minute of her best friend’s happy day. She followed Honey to the sewing room to help Ella down the stairs.
    They found Ella Kline on the floor, her crutches beyond her reach. Both girls ran to her rescue. “I skidded,” she said as she dizzily sat up. “Hand me my crutches, please?”
    “You need your wheelchair!” Trixie stormed, thinking of the way Miss Ryks had strode around that bedroom, puffing on a cigar.
    “Yes,” Ella agreed. “I’ve needed it for a long time, but I couldn’t afford it till I got the job at the Bride’s Shop. Right this minute, I need new crutch tips. I have some in my room at the inn. They’re in a dresser drawer.”
    Honey held out her hand when Ella was safely seated in the rocking chair. “If you want to give me the key to your room, I’ll see that someone goes after them during the first break we have.”
    “The manager will have to let you in,” Ella said. “I haven’t seen my key since Dick Ryks gave me a check for the wheelchair and I asked him to put it in my purse, which was out of my reach. Sometimes I have to depend on others. That’s just the way it is.”
    “You’ll have your wheelchair very soon,” Trixie promised. “Miss Ryks is leaving the inn this week.”
    “Honey!Trixie!” Miss Trask appeared in the doorway, waving the notebook she had carried from the day Juliana had chosen her wedding date. “Di’s waiting for us downstairs. We have work to do.”
    For the rest of the morning, Trixie worked indoors. She found herself inventing reasons to go near a window. Uneasily, she studied the smoothly mowed lawns, the freshly clipped shrubbery, and the parking lot Tom had arranged between the stable and the house. If even one member of that gang slipped onto the Manor House grounds without detection, there’d be trouble. She listened for