The Mystery on the Mississippi

answered.
    “Did that picture of St. Peter on the map really tell you where to find us?” Trixie asked. “Is that what happened? How did you save us?”
    “The picture helped,” the officer answered. “That and some other things.”
    “As I told you, we’ll get to that later,” Mr. Wheeler added. “Right now we must go with the doctor. You’ve both had a shocking experience. Just think, Trixie—that accident in the pool, then... I can’t bear to think about what followed. Please realize that you must do as the doctor says. You must rest.”
    “I guess maybe we do need it,” Trixie admitted reluctantly. “I’m so thankful to be saved that I can’t feel anything else. Honey needs to rest, I know that. I can’t honestly believe we’re really free—and alive.” Trixie and Honey spent the rest of the day and the night in a beautiful new hospital near the airport. They wanted to go there instead of the Coast Guard base hospital, and the doctor did not object. They shared a double room. Relief at their rescue, exhaustion from their ordeal, and the happy thought that they’d soon be going home again let them sleep the clock around.
    When the girls had been taken to their room at the hospital, Jim announced to his father and Mr. Brandio, “The Bob-Whites aren’t leaving this hospital. We’ll stay right here till the girls leave. If we’d stayed close to them before and hadn’t gone to that space exhibit, Trixie and Honey would have been all right.”
    “I’m staying here, too,” Mr. Wheeler said. “I share the blame. I thought the girls would be safe while you were at that exhibit. Most anyone would have thought so... locked in their room. They would have been, too, if it hadn’t been for Lontard’s cunning. He’s a desperate man... one of the most wanted smugglers operating in this country. Even though they have him in custody now, my blood runs cold.”
    So, in spite of Mr. Brandio’s suggestions to the contrary and his reassurance that everything possible was being done for the girls, Mr. Wheeler and the boys did not leave. They spent the night in the waiting room. From time to time they napped in the big comfortable chairs, but at the sound of a nurse’s or a doctor’s footfall, they were instantly on their feet.
    The next morning, the girls, Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Brandio, and Chief Ogilvie waited in the lounge at the motel. Bags were packed. At the airfield nearby, a plane, which would return them to New York, was being readied. Mr. Brandio’s car stood outside, awaiting word that the plane was prepared.
    Trixie’s voice broke the silence.
    “No one has said one word yet about how you knew where to find us. I couldn’t think of a way we could possibly be saved. It was awful! After those boys picked up the key, I had a little bit of hope. Even that left when I heard the man who was fishing tell them to throw the key away. What did happen, Mr. Wheeler?”
    “The boys were a lot smarter than you expected them to be. They took the key to a motel on the highway. They told the manager there about where they had found it and that they thought someone was in the pilothouse. He called the motel here.”
    “Jeepers!” Trixie’s mouth fell open. “Jeepers! Then what happened?”
    Chief Ogilvie took up the story. “I can understand why you’d want to keep faith with that boy Lem at Hannibal.”
    Trixie’s mouth fell open.
    “Oh, I knew when I talked to you, Trixie, that something pretty important had happened at Jackson’s Island. I could tell that, for some reason, you weren’t going to talk about it. So I called one of our men in Hannibal. Lem and Soapy had just been in to tell him about the piece of paper they found. They said one of you told Lem that the paper could be pretty important to the United States. After they’d talked it over, they thought the police should be in on their secret. Of course, the paper was important, Trixie. It was the link that we needed in the chain. From it and the cryptograms, it wasn’t hard to deduce that the Lontard gang was working south from Hannibal.”
    “I still don’t know what happened after the motel manager called about the key,” Trixie interrupted.
    “I’m getting to that.” Chief Ogilvie smiled. “You see, when you and Honey tried to do things on your own, you interfered with what we were trying to do. We thought we had halted the operation of the Belden-Wheeler Agency, but we sure underestimated Trixie’s doggedness.”
    “Oh,