The Mystery off Old Telegraph Road

Trixie began to regret her decision. At least the movie might have distracted me for a minute or two, she thought as she wandered aimlessly through the quiet house. As it was, she had nothing to think about but the bikeathon and whether or not those telephone threats would be carried out.
    Or I could think about the ring of counterfeiters, she thought, turning on the television and sprawling on the couch. Although I’m sure that the two are somehow related. Isn’t that silly? I have nothing to base that feeling on but a dumb, scary dream, but I can’t seem to shake it, any more than I can shake my suspicions of Ben and Nick.
    Trixie watched the local news, then stared unseeing at a situation comedy that followed. As the program ended, she stood up, stretched, and turned off the set. I hope the other viewers got more laughs out of that show than I did, she thought, with a sigh.
    Going out to the kitchen for a snack, Trixie’s eyes fell on the sawed-through chain. It reminded her of the time the lock on the bathroom door had jammed shut when Mr. Belden was fixing the plumbing, and he had had to pry the hinge pins loose in order to get out.
    Trixie opened the refrigerator, then froze, her hand reaching for a carton of milk. “Hinges!” she shouted into the empty house. “That’s it! The hinges were on the outside of that boarded-up house!”
    She turned and ran out the door, tugging on a jacket as she ran. She got her bike out of the garage and pedaled as fast as she could toward Old Telegraph Road.
    A few yards from the spot where the driveway of the abandoned house turned off the main road, Trixie got off her bike and walked beside it. She wheeled it quietly up the gravel drive and lowered the kickstand carefully with her foot.
    Her eyes straining in the darkness, Trixie made out a shadowy form next to the house. Walking toward the form, Trixie saw that it was a van—and she saw that there was a light coming from the back of the house.
    Trixie crouched down next to the van and looked toward the light. In the silence, she heard gruff-sounding men’s voices coming from the back of the house.
    “This was a sweet setup we had here,” one man said. “I still say we should just leave the stuff here.”
    “No way,” another voice replied. “It’s too risky now. With fifty kids milling around here tomorrow, somebody could discover that this cellar door has been opened recently. Then our goose would really be cooked.”
    “The door’s locked,” the first man said. “If those kids see that big padlock in place, they’re not going to notice that we’ve been taking out the hinge pins and walking right in. Even the guy who comes over to clean up the yard hasn’t noticed it. I think it’s a lot more dangerous to go driving around the country with a bunch of counterfeit money than it is to—”
    Just then, Trixie’s bike, which had been parked on the loose, unsteady gravel in the drive, tipped over with a crash.
    Trixie hesitated, unsure whether to stay hidden by the van or make a run for it. She hesitated too long. When she finally stood up to make a dash for the road, she succeeded only in stepping into the ray of a flashlight carried by one of the men coming around from the back of the house to investigate the noise.
    Trixie turned and started to run, but the darkhaired, burly man quickly overtook her. He seized her by the arm and held it in a viselike grip, dragging her around to the back of the house and shoving her roughly through the open cellar door.
    “Look what I found,” he called. “It’s the leader of those bikeathon kids.”
    Trixie stumbled down the steep stairs and found herself face-to-face with the other man. He, too, was dark-haired, but he was less husky than the man who had pushed her. He looked no less menacing for his smaller size.
    “You’re the one that people call the amateur detective, aren’t you?” the smaller man snarled. “We thought we’d have trouble with you before now. That’s why we kept away from you with our threats and tire-slashing. Well, you finally got too nosy. Now you’re going to have to be loaded into the van with all the other stuff we have to dispose of.” He moved menacingly toward her, and the big man grabbed her from behind, stuffed a rag into her mouth to keep her from screaming, and tied her hands together behind her back.
    He pushed her into a dark comer of the cellar, saying, “Stay here until we’re ready to leave.”
    Trixie felt the