The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim

inside. They barely had time to take their assigned places before the customers started to pour in.
    The Bob-Whites had decided to take the various duties involved with the sale in rotation. Trixie and Honey took the first turn at the table by the door, with one girl adding up the customers’ purchases and the other taking money and making change.
    The others circulated among the tables, answering questions and, occasionally, serving as models for clothing being purchased for a son or daughter “about your size.”
    An hour into the sale, Trixie looked up and stared in amazement as what looked like a moving pile of rummage came toward her.
    The rummage dropped to the table and the happy but embarrassed face of Mrs. Manning emerged from behind it. “Hello, again,” she said cheerfully.
    “Did you decide to take your contributions back?” Trixie asked, half-seriously.
    “Oh, my, no,” Mrs. Manning said. “These are all new things. Well, all new used things. You know what I mean. There’s so much wonderful merchandise here!”
    “What all are you buying?” Trixie asked, looking at the pile that Honey was sorting.
    “Rags?” Honey asked, holding up a huge plastic bag full of cloth strips.
    “Yes. Isn’t it wonderful?” Mrs. Manning asked. “That bag has all the makings for a braided rug. Someone must have started it and lost interest after tearing up all the strips. My grandmother used to make braided rugs, and I always wanted to give it a try. Now I’m already halfway finished, and I haven’t even started yet!”
    Secretly, Trixie wondered if the project would ever be any closer to completion, but she didn’t want to spoil Mrs. Manning’s happiness.
    “And look at this,” Mrs. Manning continued, holding up a calendar wrapped in a plastic bag. “This calendar is for the year nineteen fifty-two. That’s when I was married! Imagine finding a nineteen fifty-two calendar, after all these years!”
    “Imagine,” Honey said pleasantly, the corner of her mouth twitching.
    “And this!” Mrs. Manning exclaimed, holding up a book with yellowed edges. “It’s an almanac for nineteen sixty. That’s the year my daughter was born. Won’t she be thrilled to be able to read all about what the world was like when she was born?“
    “I’m sure she’ll be delighted,” Honey said politely. “Those are the most useful things I found,” Mrs. Manning said, looking over her purchases. “The other things are just frivolous. This piece of needlework is so pretty, I just couldn’t resist it, although I don’t know quite where I’ll hang it. And here’s an ashtray that’s a souvenir of the World’s Fair in New York. Now, that could be worth a lot of money as an antique someday, and it won’t take up much room, so I thought I’d just buy it and hold on to it. And this—Oh, dear, there are lots of people in line behind me. You’ll just have to visit me someday, and I’ll tell you about the rest of these things.”
    “We’d love to, Mrs. Manning,” Honey responded warmly for both of them.
    “Would you like some help carrying those things to the car?” Trixie asked as she handed Mrs. Manning her change.
    “Oh, no, thank you, dear. I can manage. Goodbye. I hope to see you soon.” As Mrs. Manning spoke, she once again disappeared behind her pile of purchases.
    Trixie shook her head as she watched the woman walk out the door. “If we have another sale, we’ll know where to go asking for donations,” she said.
    Honey giggled. “We’ll hear the stories behind the purchases all over again, too.”
    The next customer was Mrs. Maurer, the woman who had contributed her children’s books. She made Trixie keep her promise to tell all about the author of the Lucy Radcliffe mysteries.
    “The author’s real name is Mr. Appleton,” Trixie said. “He’s sandy-haired and mild-mannered, easily embarrassed. Just to look at him, you’d never guess he could write such exciting mystery stories.”
    “But you said you’d suspected him of being a murderer!” Mrs. Maurer reminded Trixie.
    “That was dumb,” Trixie reflected.
    “It wasn’t dumb; it was a dummy,” Honey corrected her.
    Trixie laughed. “That’s right. You see, Mr. Appleton has a dummy named Clarence. It’s one of those manikins you see in department stores. He uses it to help him work out some of the action scenes in the Lucy Radcliffe books.”
    “How interesting!” the woman said.
    “But he didn’t tell us that at first. He