The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

that the janitor was stealing his invention. He even claimed that the janitor pulled the gun on him and that he managed to knock the man on the head with a piece of lead pipe, take the gun away, and haul the man to the alley.”
    “Couldn’t he have been telling the truth, and not the janitor?” Trixie asked the Sleepyside officer.
    “Sure. He could have been. Half a dozen witnesses could have been lying, too, when they testified that Meiser had been getting more and more eccentric, convinced that everyone in the world was out to get him. But I don’t think that’s how it happened,” Sergeant Molinson said.
    Trixie sat silent for a moment. She remembered her conversation with Henry Meiser. He had seemed eccentric, she had to admit. She herself had used the word “hostile” to describe him. But he certainly hadn’t seemed capable of violence. She pictured him in his hospital bed, his head swathed in bandages.
    “Wait a minute!” Trixie exclaimed aloud. “We saw him get hit by that van. Was that faked somehow?”
    Sergeant Molinson shook his head. “He was hurt, all right. He had a concussion and two cracked ribs. Every step he takes is going to be very painful.”
    “Then why would he leave the hospital?” Trixie asked.
    “I guess he figured a few days in pain beats a few years in prison,” the sergeant said. “That’s what he’ll get if he’s caught. He’d have been freed in a couple of months if he hadn’t decided to escape.” The sergeant shook his head. “I just wish that FBI report had come in a few hours earlier.”
    Trixie gasped as she suddenly realized why Henry Meiser had sneaked out of the hospital. She had told him about the fingerprint check! As all eyes turned to her, she blushed and stammered, “I—I guess I helped him to escape.” Hurrying to explain before he could yell at her, she told the sergeant what she had said to Henry Meiser. She added, “You said he probably wasn’t a criminal. I just wanted to make him feel better about having amnesia. Does this make me an accessory to the escape?”

The Glenwood Avenue Connection ● 9

    SERGEANT MOLINSON SHOOK HIS HEAD RUEFULLY. “I wish I could charge you with something. I’d like a judge to sentence you to a year’s silence. But I didn’t tell you to keep the fingerprinting secret. So it’s my responsibility, not yours.”
    The relief that showed on Trixie’s face was quickly replaced by a puzzled look. “Sergeant,” she asked, “if Mr. Meiser really was in pain, as you say, why wouldn’t he want to get as far away from Sleepyside as possible and just hide a few days until he felt better? Why would he take the time to come clear out here and vandalize the Model A?”
    “You young people were the last ones who talked to Meiser before the accident. After the accident, he couldn’t remember what he’d said to you, although that doesn’t mean he had total amnesia,” Molinson added, flashing a dark look at Trixie. “Obviously, he was afraid he’d said something he shouldn’t have. That vandalism was a warning to you that you’d better not tell what you know.”
    “But what is it that we know?” Trixie demanded. “I was thinking back over your report of the hit and run while I was driving over here,” the sergeant told her. “It seems to me that Glenwood Avenue is the key. We know that’s where he was going. We also know he never got there. I think he didn’t want anyone else getting there first. I have all the public buildings along Glenwood staked out. I also made sure the officers who patrol Glenwood have Meiser’s description. I think that if Meiser does turn up in Sleepyside, that’s where he’ll be.”
    “I know—” Trixie broke off as she remembered the haunted eyes of the woman who lived on Glenwood Avenue. She remembered, too, what Honey had said: They had no real proof that the woman was connected with the hit-and-run victim. But a visit from the police would surely terrify her. She might, as Honey suggested, pack up and flee again from whatever unknown danger was frightening her. “I know you’ll be able to find him,” she concluded awkwardly.
    Sergeant Molinson left, and Trixie and her brothers remained seated at the table.
    “What do we do now?” Trixie asked.
    “Honey and Jim should know about this,” Brian said. “Dan and Di, too. I think an emergency meeting of the Bob-Whites is in order.”
    Trixie nodded, rose from the table and walked to the telephone. She returned a few