The Red Trailer Mystery

thing to worry about, Mrs. Darnell," she said firmly. "I know Mr. Lynch, and he’s just about the kindest man alive. He’ll understand why you had to borrow his trailer. Why, he’s got four or five children of his own, all younger than Diana. I’m going right back to Autoville and call him up and tell him the whole story. Just you wait and see. He’ll tell the police to stop looking for the Robin . Then Mr. Darnell can leave you with the Smiths while he returns the trailer."
    "It’s too late for that," Mrs. Darnell wailed. "The Smiths will never take us back, and I think Darney has already been arrested, he’s been gone so long. Oh, if only he’d been willing to let well enough alone, but, no, he had to go and risk being caught himself to put the troopers on the trail of those thieves!"
    Trixie and Honey gasped in unison. "Was it Mr. Darnell who called headquarters yesterday?" Trixie demanded in amazement. "Did he know that the Smiths’ old barn was the trailer thieves’ hideout?"
    Mrs. Darnell nodded tearfully. "Darney was out searching for some sign of Joeanne. He thought at first she might have gone to Wilson Ranch, because she’s heard him speak of his old home so often, and how as a boy he used to swim in a quarry. Then yesterday around noon he caught sight of the roof of an old barn down in the hollow on the other side of the road. He looked inside it, hoping she might be hiding there, and saw this big van and valuable trailer equipment lying around. Then, not an hour later, he stumbled across the same van hitched to a trailer in the woods on this side of the road. Nothing would do but he must walk five miles to the nearest gas station and risk being arrested himself while he tips off the police."
    She smiled through her tears, and Trixie saw that, in spite of her worries, Mrs. Darnell was proud of her husband. "That’s Darney for you," she said, "and Joeanne is exactly like him. They have the same thick black hair that grows like weeds, and they’re both as stubborn as mules and as honest as the day is long. If it hadn’t been for my being so sickly, my Darney would never have touched that trailer."
    A twig crackled in the woods, and all three of them jumped as a tall, broad-shouldered trooper stepped out from behind the thick trunk of an old oak tree.

Mrs. Smith Takes Over • 17

    OUT OF THE CORNER of her eye, Trixie saw with inner amusement that gentle, kindhearted Honey had doubled up her fists and looked prepared to scratch the troopers eyes out. Trixie herself let out a long, pent-up sigh of relief, for the trooper with the sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves was standing there uncertainly, as though tom between his sense of duty and sympathy for Mrs. Darnell.
    "I’m sorry to have been eavesdropping, ma’am," he told her in a most apologetic voice. "I saw that blond kid sleigh-riding down the hill on the seat of her pants and came over to investigate." His kind blue eyes twinkled. "So it was your husband who called headquarters yesterday."
    Mrs. Darnell’s lower lip trembled, and she caught it between her teeth. "Yes, it was," she said defiantly, "and it was he who took the red trailer you’ve been looking high and low for these past few days." She pointed through the trees. "There it is, waiting for you, and it’ll be the answer to my prayers if you take it away."
    "Now, then, take it easy, ma’am," the sergeant said soothingly. "Our orders about that red trailer have been changed since yesterday. When we notified Mr. Lynch that it hadn’t been stolen by one of the gang that’s been operating in this neck of the woods, he said for us to skip it. Said he’d just learned that one of his very good neighbors had borrowed it and that he would be very much obliged if we would have this fact announced on the radio as soon as possible."
    The sergeant twirled his cap. "Couldn’t help overhearing what you were telling these girls just now, Mrs. Darnell. Sounds as though you were the neighbors Mr. Lynch told us about on the phone. Guess Mr. Lynch only just heard about the trouble you people have been having. I figured you might like to have a motorcycle escort down the river when your husband drives the Robin back to Sleepyside. You can’t always tell how the cops in some of those small towns might act if they saw a red trailer passing through. Might get all excited and ask you a lot of foolish questions."
    Mrs. Darnell’s thin face turned pale, then red, and then pale again. "Oh,