The Red Trailer Mystery

sobered, he said, "So your phone was out of order. Every time I got a chance I’ve been trying to call police headquarters, but I thought that buzzing sound meant somebody was on the line."
    "And what were you going to call the police about?" Mrs. Smith demanded as she heaped the egg and cheese mixture on plates and filled four tall glasses with thick, creamy milk.
    Jim looked embarrassed, and Honey broke in quickly, "I knew you’d do it, Jim, or at least try to. After you let the air out of the tire and hid the jack—"
    "It doesn’t matter now, anyway," Trixie interrupted. "Joeanne’s father notified the police, Jim, and we were hiding in the old barn when the troopers arrested Jeff and Al."
    Jim stopped with his fork halfway to his mouth. "You girls certainly get around." He grinned. "I suppose the whereabouts of Joeanne’s family at the moment is no mystery to you, either."
    "It isn’t," Trixie told him tartly. "And as soon as we’ve finished eating Mrs. Smith out of house and home, we’re going to take Joeanne there."
    "Not me," Jim said. "I’ve got beans to pick, and then I’m off again. I plan to hit the road tonight."
    "You’ll do nothing of the sort," Mrs. Smith boomed at the top of her lungs. "The very idea! Going away just when I've grown to love you like one of my seven sons." She patted her album locket. "Nat’s baby picture will have to come out, and I’ll put one of you in its place, Jim Frayne."
    Jim’s face turned white and the freckles stood out on the bridge of his nose. "Then—you—know—who I am?" he muttered under his breath.
    "And why not?" Mrs. Smith sank down in her rocker. "I may be fat, but I can still read the newspapers, and if I remember correctly there was a story on the front page about a missing heir just a week ago today. The nephew of one James Winthrop Frayne, of Sleepyside, I recall. It is none of my business why you want to run away from half a million dollars, but when you knocked on my door asking for work, and I ask you your name, and you say, ‘Call me Win,’ and I say, ‘Short for Winthrop?’ and you nod that red head of yours, what else can I think but that you didn’t get burned alive in that fire?"
    She stopped for breath, and Honey said, "It’s all right, Jim. You haven’t anything to worry about."
    He acted as though he hadn’t heard her. "Half a million dollars," he repeated dazedly. "Then Trixie was right." His mouth widened into a smile. "Why, I can even buy my freedom from Jonesy with that much money. I’ll take enough to see me through college, and he can have the rest."
    "Indeed he can’t," Trixie broke in. "He won’t see one cent of it. Mr. Rainsford, who’s the executor of your great-uncle’s estate, has already made arrangements to appoint another guardian." It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that Honey hoped her parents would adopt him, but before she could begin, heavy feet clumped up the steps to the door.
    On the other side of the screen was the tallest and thinnest man Trixie had ever seen. "Well, I found him, Mary," Nathaniel Smith said as he walked into the kitchen. Right behind him was Joeanne’s father. He looked so different with his closely cropped hair that Trixie would never have recognized him if Joeanne hadn’t screamed, "Daddy!"

Jim’s Decision • 18

    JOEANNE JUMPED out of her chair, knocking it over and spilling her milk at the same time. Mr. Darnell, his face wreathed in smiles, pushed by Farmer Smith and gathered his daughter into his arms.
    "It took you long enough," Mrs. Smith told her husband, trying hard to keep back the tears as she watched Joeanne clinging to her father.
    The tall, thin man folded himself tiredly into a straight-backed chair. "Tramped every inch of the woods on both sides of the road," he said in a monotone. "Found the camp where Win here was hiding out before he came to work for us. You were right about him, too, Mary. Saw his name on a christening mug under the blanket on his bunk."
    Mrs. Smith rocked back and forth placidly. "We've been married thirty years," she told Honey and Trixie, "and yet it never fails to surprise Nat when I’m right. Go on, lamb," she urged her husband. "Where did you finally find the Darnells?"
    "I followed the stream by Win’s camp," Mr. Smith continued, "and then I heard a dog barking. Sounded as though it came from Frog Hollow, and, sure enough, it did. In a few minutes more I saw the Robin in a clearing and Mr. Darnell himself in the tow