The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

and—”
    “Stop!Stop!” Trixie shouted. “I can’t stand it. With every single item you’re listing, I’m hearing the slow, heavy ticking of a clock—a clock that will count out the five hours of slavery that is my fate.” Trixie dramatically clutched her hands to her heart and fell back against the car seat, a look of exaggerated despair on her face.
    Di beamed triumphantly, and she slipped her arm through Mart’s. “I guess we’re the winning team,” she told him.
    “This contest can’t be won in a day,” Jim muttered. “Don’t count your servants before they’re hatched, to mangle an ancient proverb.”
    “There is veracity in that ancient adage,” Mart said dreamily. “And yet it is with difficulty that I banish pleasant visions from my imagination. Even yet, I seem to see sandy curls dripping with perspiration as the snub-nosed cherub whom they adorn pushes a lawn mower... polishes storm windows until they glisten... scrubs—”
    “Snub-nosed!” Trixie shrieked. The insult had kept her from hearing the veiled threats that came after it. “Your nose isn’t exactly a thing of beauty, Mart Belden! I just wish the contest today had been for finding clues instead of bedroom sets. Then we’d see who’s the clear winner!” She regretted her outburst immediately, but it was too late to call the words back.
    “What’s this about clues?” Jim asked.
    “Nothing,” Trixie said sullenly.
    “Come on, Trixie,” Jim said. “As I recall, the Bob-Whites are supposed to be loyal to one another.”
    “If you and Brian and Mart were loyal to Honey and me, you wouldn’t always tear apart everything we say,” Trixie said, on the verge of tears as her worries about losing to Mart in the contest combined with her rapidly surfacing anger. “Whenever Honey and I do tell you what we know, you try to tell us we don’t really know it at all. So this time, we’re not going to tell you at all.”
    “You’re miffed because nobody flew into action when you proposed that the hit and run wasn’t accidental,” Jim guessed. “All right, I don’t blame you. It isn’t pleasant to have someone doubt what our reason tells us. I guess I don’t even blame you for not wanting to risk having that happen again. If you don’t want to tell us your theory, that’s all right.”
    As Jim spoke, he turned the station wagon into the driveway of Crabapple Farm. He put the car in park and turned around in the seat, looking Trixie directly in the eye as he continued: “If you decide to do something about your theory without telling anyone else, that is not all right. If you get into trouble, someone else had better know enough about what’s going on to help you out of it. Understand?”
    Trixie sat motionless, frozen by Jim’s sincere gaze. Finally she looked down at her hands in her lap and nodded.
    “We’d already decided not to do anything about our theory until we have more information, Jim,” Honey said.
    “Okay,” Jim said. “Now, everybody give me your lists of donors so I can make the pickup rounds tonight with the wagon.”
    Mart and Honey handed over their lists. Trixie continued to stare at her hands, trying to convince herself that Jim had lectured her out of concern for her safety. It was true, she had to admit, that she and Honey had both had close calls when they plunged into action without telling anybody about it. Jim had a point, she finally concluded.
    “C-Could I ride along tonight when you go to pick up things for the sale?” she asked timidly.
    Jim grinned at her. “Sure can,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be with tonight. Remember, though, that we’re in for a lot of hard work and not a relaxing movie,” he warned her with a mock grimace.
    Trixie felt the knot in her stomach begin to relax. It was important, she knew, that she not allow herself to avoid Jim, letting her anger grow and turning his concerned warning into an unfeeling lecture in her mind.
    It was important, too, that she get another look at the house on Glenwood Avenue where the troubled woman and the little blond girl seemed to be holding themselves captive.

    The Beldens’ dinner-hour conversation was completely taken up with talk of the rummage sale.
    The Model A had pulled into the Belden driveway shortly after the station wagon had pulled out of it.
    Brian, like the other Bob-Whites, had a mixture of success and failure to report.
    “If we could get points toward winning the