The Red Trailer Mystery

you tracked us down. I’ve been a fool. I thought you were kind. I even hoped Joeanne might be with you. She said you were nice girls, and we’ve never laid eyes on her since she took back your puppy. I’ve prayed every night since she ran away that she had hidden in your trailer and that she was safe in your care."
    Impulsively Honey put her arms around the woman’s shaking shoulders. "Don’t cry, Mrs. Darnell," she begged. "We are your friends; really and truly we are."
    The frail woman pulled away from her. "Friends!" she repeated hoarsely. "You’ve been spying on us from the beginning and setting your dog on us. You knew how my little Sally loved him. You knew he would lead you to our hiding place. I should have shut him out last night and left him to shift for himself in the woods. He’s been the cause of all our troubles."
    "I’m terribly sorry," Honey cried, on the verge of tears herself now. "We never meant to spy on you. And we’ve been trying to find Joeanne ever since she ran away."
    "It was your dog that made her do it," Mrs. Darnell sobbed. "'It’s bad enough to have a thief for a father,’ she told me, my oldest girl and my only comfort. ‘But when my little sister starts taking after her father and stealing, too, I can’t bear it.’ And those were the last words she spoke."
    Trixie found her voice at last. "You mustn’t worry ' about Joeanne anymore, Mrs. Darnell," she got out. "She’s perfectly safe. A friend of ours has been taking good care of her."
    Mrs. Darnell stopped crying and hope gleamed in her reddened eyes. "Are you telling me the truth?" she demanded. "How can I trust you? Darney had a fine job with a good home for us at the Smith farm, and then you girls turned up. He was going to return the trailer to Mr. Lynch just as soon as the beans were picked, but when Sally told us she had seen you from the upstairs window, Darney wouldn’t stay at the Smiths’ another night. Oh, why did you have to ruin everything?"
    She began to weep again but stopped abruptly as Trixie suddenly shouted. "Lynch! Oh, now I remember where I saw the Robin before. It belongs to Diana Lynch’s father. They have a big place just outside of Sleepyside on the river," she explained to Honey in a rush of words. "Diana was in my class at school last year and invited me for lunch one Saturday. She showed me inside their trailer, but I’d forgotten all about it until this minute."
    Mrs. Darnell wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron and set her thin shoulders. "There’s no use pretending anymore," she told Trixie. "Darney should never have done it, but what else could he do, with four children, and me so sick I could hardly move from room to room? The landlord said we’d have to get out the first of August if we didn’t pay the rent. There were doctor bills and hospital bills and Darney barely on his feet again after the operation on his eye. And the farm not producing anything, what with him too sick to do the spring planting." She looked at them, imploring for sympathy. "Then Mr. Lynch stopped by one morning and asked Darney to keep an eye on his house while he and his family were away on vacation. He was our nearest neighbor, you see, and very friendly, although Darney was too proud to let him know about our troubles. So, after the Lynches had gone, Darney went over to see if the house was locked up and everything as it should be, and there in the big garage was the trailer, all hitched up and ready to go, with the keys in the tow car."
    "The Lynches must have planned to take their vacation in the Robin and changed their minds at the last minute," Trixie put in.
    Mrs. Darnell nodded in agreement. "The temptation was too much for Darney . He couldn’t go off and look for work, leaving me, too weak to stand, with the care of the children. He knew he’d find work on one of the farms upstate—he knows this part of the country—his family once owned Wilson Ranch."
    "And so," Honey finished sympathetically, "he just borrowed the Robin, planning to return it before the Lynches came home."
    "That’s right," Mrs. Darnell said. "But it was very wrong of us, and we deserve to be punished. We’ve never drawn a happy breath since we started out. What with having to keep the children cooped up inside whenever we stopped, for fear one of them would prattle and give away our secret. And then my big girl, my Joeanne—" She broke down again.
    Trixie couldn’t stand it another minute. "You haven’t got a