The Mystery on Cobbett's Island

downstairs, Mrs. Kimball called to ask if they had had any luck.
    “We’re on our way down now,” Trixie answered. “We’ll show you.”
    Mrs. Kimball was delighted when she saw what they had found. At her suggestion, they left the dresses I in the guest room to be ironed, and then they hurried J toward the gazebo, where they could hear the boys hammering away.
    “It looks absolutely super!” Trixie called out as they approached.
    “Look, they’ve even fixed the weather vane,” cried Di, pointing to the little ship, which was moving in the light breeze.
    “And the floor is as good as new,” Honey added as she jumped up and down to test it.
    “Now, if you’re about finished, we have news for you,” said Trixie as she sat down on one of the benches. “Guess what.”
    “Trixie’s found the money! Trixie’s found the money!” chanted Mart, clapping his hands.
    “Oh, stop acting like an idiot!” Trixie said fiercely. “I’m serious. Someone’s been lurking around here this morning, and we saw him take off through the woods back of the toolshed just a few minutes ago, and he was wearing—”
    “A black jacket, I’ll bet,” said Brian.
    “Right, but he was too far away for us to tell what he looked like. All we could see was his back. But he was sort of tall.”
    “Why didn’t you follow him, Trix? I never knew you to pass up a chance to follow a hot lead before,” quipped Mart with a broad grin.
    “We were up in the attic when we saw him, that’s why,” Honey answered. “So don’t blame Trixie, Mart Belden. You know she would have trailed him if she could.”
    “In the attic!” cried Brian. “For pete’s sake, what were you doing up there?”
    Oh, I had an idea that if we wore old-fashioned costumes this afternoon, it might be kind of an added attraction,” Trixie explained, “and Mrs. Kimball let us look up there in those old trunks.”
    “Did you have any luck, or did the mysterious stranger interrupt you?” Mart persisted.
    “You’ll just have to wait and see,” Honey replied. “Okay, but you’re not the only ones with a secret,” Jim said, “so you’ll have to ‘wait and see,’ too.”
    The girls tried unsuccessfully to wheedle Jim into telling them what he meant, but he only said, “ ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.’ Now we’d better get back to the house and let them know that the gazebo is fixed.”
    “We’ll go and tell Mrs. Kimball while you take the tools back,” volunteered Trixie, “and then I want to have a look around the shed and see if there are any signs of anyone’s fooling around out there.”
    The girls ran back to the house and then hurried to the shed, arriving there just as Jim was hanging up the last of the tools.
    “I can’t see that anything is missing,” said Peter, giving a cursory glance around the room, “but maybe your eagle eyes will find some dues.”
    Trixie went upstairs but returned almost immediately. “Everything’s just the way we left it up there,” she announced. “Now, let’s see. No cigarette butts down here, no footprints, no— Hey, wait a minute!” she cried as her eyes swept around the walls. “No calendar! Pete, did you take it into the house?”
    “By Jove, I didn’t. After I made the copy of the map, I left it right here on the workbench, and I’m pretty sure it was here this morning,” he answered as he looked under the bench and around the room.
    “Could it have blown away?” asked Di, looking out-side the door.
    “Not a chance. The calendar had a heavy metal binder, and there hasn’t been more than a light breeze blowing all day,” Peter replied thoughtfully, scratching his head in puzzlement.
    “No, someone took it!” Trixie said fiercely. “And I’m afraid our secret is out of the bag. If we’re being spied on, we’ll all have to make a special effort to act as though nothing has happened. And we’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open.”

Teacups and Sailboats • 13

    DURING LUNCH, Trixie seemed unusually quiet, despite Jim’s efforts to draw her into the conversation. “What’s on your mind, Trix?” he asked as she continued to toy with her food.
    “Oh, I don’t know. It all seems so kind of hopeless,” she answered. “Honey and I had better think twice about being detectives if we can’t do any better than this.”
    “Don’t be discouraged,” Honey reassured her. “We’ve often lost the trail before, but something always turns up to