The Mystery on Cobbett's Island

breakfast, but he’s gone up to Vermont this week to look over some properties for a ski lodge.”
    “Gosh, wouldn’t that be neat,” said Trixie, “to have your very own lodge to go to whenever you wanted?”
    “Well, I could go whenever the Board of Education saw fit to give me a holiday.” Peter smiled ruefully. “I still have to go to school, you know.”
    “I know,” Jim said. “We never seem to have enough time to ski or skate at home, either. We don’t have too many really good days of skiing in Westchester, anyway, and they never seem to fall on weekends.”
    “We aren’t too far from Fahnestock, though,” Mart said, “so we drive up there when we can steal time from our homework. They have a good ski lift and a snow machine.”
    After Mrs. Kimball had returned to the house, Trixie took the envelope with the mysterious letter out of the pocket of her shorts, and, looking at Peter, she said, “We have another problem, Peter. You were so good at helping us with the tree, maybe you can help us solve a mystery.” She handed him the letter, and Jim told him how they had happened to find it in the old book.
    “You see, we really don’t know whether we have any business reading the letter or trying to do anything about it,” said Diana seriously, “and since we’re all so new here on the island, we’d like your advice.”
    Peter whistled softly as he read the letter. “Well, what do you know, a mystery right on this quiet little island!”
    “Trixie would turn up a mystery if she were marooned at the North Pole,” Mart chuckled.
    “Do you think the letter is real—that is, do you think Mr. C and Ed are real?” asked Trixie, ignoring her brother’s sally.
    “Well, I don’t know for sure, of course,” Peter replied, “but why would anyone put a letter in an adult’s book if it were written as some kind of joke?”
    “Have you any idea who Mr. C might be?” asked Brian.
    Peter thought for a while; then, snapping his fingers, he said, “Of course. How dumb can I be? The Moorings is sometimes called the old Condon place, because Mr. Condon lived there for many years before his death. He could be the Mr. C of the letter.”
    “Golly, I remember now,” said Mart. “The man on the ferry said something about the Condon place when we were asking directions. I’ll bet you’re right, Peter.”
    “Could be, but that doesn’t help much with ‘Ed,’ does it?” Peter said. “You know, I think it might help if we had a talk with Abe White. He’s Cobbett’s Island’s one and only police officer. Maybe he can shed some light on who Ed is. He’s a good friend of mine, and we can trust him to keep this under his hat.”
    Mart turned to his sister and asked, “Did it ever occur to you, Schoolgirl Shamus, that maybe there isn't any mystery and that the thousand dollars has long since been found and given to Ed’s boy?”
    “Oh, I can’t believe that,” wailed Trixie, upset at the very idea of not being able to unravel another case. “I’ll die if there isn’t anything to it!”
    “There she goes again,” Jim said banteringly. “My copresident is frequently at the point of death, and it’s only through the combined efforts of her loyal cohorts that she is persuaded to face life again.”
    “Bear up, Trixie; we can’t lose you now!” cried Honey with mock emotion in her voice, and everyone laughed, including Trixie.
    “We’ll go down at lunchtime and talk with Abe. We can catch him at Bascom’s store, where he usually eats lunch,” said Peter. “I’ve just got my driver’s license, so we can drive down in the Icebox. That’s what Dad calls my jalopy.”
    As they were stacking the dishes on the tray to take them back to the kitchen, they heard a noise of breaking branches in the nearby bushes.
    “What was that?” asked Trixie apprehensively.
    “Oh, probably a deer,” answered Peter. “They get so tame around here that in the winter, when food is scarce, they come right up to the house. Or it may have been a tree that was almost blown down in the storm.”
    When Trixie got into the kitchen, she asked Mrs. Kimball if she had ever heard of a golden chain tree. “You have so many different kinds of trees here, I thought you might know about that one. I read about it recently, and the name fascinates me.”
    “As a matter of fact, we do have a golden chain tree —a very beautiful one. It stands just behind the pool. It isn’t in bloom yet, so you wouldn’t