The Mystery on the Mississippi

Say, do you suppose those papers over there in the wastebasket belonged to him? The maid evidently didn’t empty it.”
    “Maybe they are his.” Honey grasped the wastebasket and brought out a handful of crumpled papers. “Look at this!”
    Trixie straightened them out on top of the dressing table. “Hmmm... more of that graph paper. He could have been copying plans. These sheets have figures all over them. And writing, too. There’s a map of the Mississippi River—and look at these queer drawings along the river!”
    “Let me see. They’re not well drawn. Maybe he just sketched them for his children.”
    “I don’t think so. I think they’re much more important than that.” Trixie folded the papers together and put them in her purse. “We’d better meet the boys and show them what we’ve found. Jim will know whether there’s anything odd about them. Let’s go, Honey.”
    “You’d better not tell Jim and Brian how that man shoved you with his elbow. They’d knock his block off.”
    “I thought that was what you were going to do,” Trixie said. “You turned on him like a wildcat.”
    “I was scared—awfully scared, Trixie. I hope we never run into him again.”
    “I... just... think... we... may,” Trixie said slowly and mysteriously. “I have one of my strange premonitions.”

Catfish Princess • 2

    JIM, BRIAN, DAN, AND MART sat on a bench at the pool’s edge, waiting for the girls.
    “Golly, Trix,” Dan said, “why do girls take so long to fix their faces or whatever they do? We could have been halfway to the city by this time.”
    “Wait just a second, Dan.” Trixie fumbled in her purse and brought out the papers. “What do you think of these?” She leaned over the bench back and dropped the sheets in Jim’s lap.
    “What are they? Where did you get them?” he asked curiously.
    Honey told him. “... and you should have seen the way he looked when he found us picking up the papers from the floor.”
    “He looked as though he could kill us!” Trixie said dramatically. “Do those papers look odd to you, Dan? Brian? Mart? What’s the matter with you, Jim? What’s so funny?”
    “Nothing, Trix.Nothing.” Jim smothered a grin. “I can’t help laughing when I think that if Dad had waited just fifteen minutes longer, he’d have seen you put on your gumshoes and start sleuthing.”
    “I’m not sleuthing. I just wanted to show you this stuff and ask you what you think I should do with it.”
    “If you were asking me, I’d say to take it back and give it to the man you saw,” Brian said.
    Jim agreed. “I don’t see any reason to be worked up over these papers. You’d better do as Brian suggested. Give ’em back.”
    Trixie frowned. “Do you think so, Dan?”
    “I’m not too sure. I didn’t see the man, and you and Honey did. You’re usually right when you think something odd is going on.”
    “Don’t let Brian and me influence you, Trix,” Jim told her.
    “I won’t. Maybe I should just take them back. He’s probably miles away by this time, though. He seemed to be in a hurry. Oh, well, forget it for now, anyway.” Trixie put the papers back into her purse. “Let’s get going to wherever you want to go.”
    “We want to try to get on the next steamboat that docks in St. Louis,” Mart said.
    “That sure won’t be today. Things just don’t work out that fast,” Brian said. “Anyway, Trix, while we were waiting for you and Honey, we asked at the motel desk, and the man there didn’t know anything about steamboats. He had some vague idea that there’s one steamboat still cruising up and down the Mississippi. I asked him when it would stop at St. Louis, and he didn’t know.”
    “He told us we could ask at the Jefferson Memorial in Forest Park,” Jim added. “That’s where they have all kinds of historical stuff—model rooms from old steamboats and other things about the river. I’d sort of like to go there this afternoon. We could explore the rest of Forest Park, too—the zoo and the model railroad. Dad told us all about the place when he came back from one of his trips here. Forest Park is supposed to be almost as exciting as Central Park in New York City. Do you have your camera, Trixie?” Trixie’s hand went to her mouth in dismay. “I forgot it. I was so confused by the way that man acted. I’ll run and get it. I won’t be a second.”
    Back at her room, Trixie found the door open. The maid was still working there. “I’ve