The secret of the Mansion

him tomorrow morning," Honey broke in. "We can ride through the bridle trails on the other side of Glen Road. Dad says it’s a lovely ride, and if there are any gates we can open them for you, or you can ride around them."
    "That would be wonderful," Trixie cried enthusiastically. "And sometime before Jim goes, let’s go for a moonlight ride. The moon’s full now, so it would be as light as day. Do you think Regan would let us?"
    "I’m pretty sure he would," Honey said. "I have a feeling he must have seen Jim and me out riding yesterday afternoon. That’s why he’s so sure Jim can handle Jupiter. Regan went off in the Ford, you know, and he just might have been driving along the back roads and seen us galloping through the fields beyond our property."
    "Anyway," Trixie interrupted, "let’s bring our lunches tomorrow and have a picnic in the woods. Dad said I deserved a day off, and the garden’s practically free of weeds now, so I think Moms would let me go."
    As Trixie waved good-bye to Honey, she suddenly remembered that Mr. Lytell had said he was riding his old nag through the woods on the opposite side of the road when he saw smoke up at the Mansion. "Oh, heck," she told herself. "That was early in the morning. By the time we start out, he’ll be safely behind his counter in the store." She hurried along the path, because it was time to feed the chickens and she could see her father’s car turning into the driveway. "And even if he should see Jim," she decided, "he won’t know who he is. He couldn’t possibly know everything!"
     

A Night at the Manor House • 14
     
    TRIXIE SCATTERED a handful of grain around the chicken yard and was relieved to notice that the water can did not need refilling. Her father joined her as she gathered eggs.
    "How many?" he asked.
    "Only seven," she said.
    "That’s not too bad," he said. "The hens will start molting soon, and then we’ll have to buy eggs until the pullets begin to lay." He pointed to a fat young cockerel that was greedily pecking the scratch. "He and his brother will make nice broilers for the weekend."
    Trixie grinned. "Yummy-yum, but it doesn’t seem possible that those baby chicks we bought in March are ready to eat. It seems like yesterday that they were nothing but balls of yellow fluff and Bobby and I made up our minds that we’d never, never eat anything so cute."
    They strolled down the path to the terrace and Trixie asked, "How is Mr. Frayne, Dad? Did you stop at the hospital today?"
    Mr. Belden shook his head. "No, but I telephoned just before I left the bank. His condition is unchanged. I’m afraid the old gentleman hasn’t a chance, Trixie. He was too undernourished, to begin with."
    "I just don’t understand it," Trixie said. "With all that money, you’d think he would have eaten a square meal occasionally."
    "Nobody’s sure that he did have any money," her father reminded her. "He may well have lost his entire fortune in bad investments, you know."
    "How about the property?" Trixie asked. "It’s worth a thousand dollars an acre, isn’t it?"
    "It may be heavily mortgaged," Mr. Belden said. "I’ll inquire at the bank about that tomorrow. But even if it isn’t mortgaged, Mr. Frayne may well have preferred starving to the risk of losing his land. A lot of people feel that way about their land, you know. They would rather die than sacrifice it."
    Trixie thought of the closets on the top floor of the Mansion that were filled with expensive clothes which had been allowed to rot into shreds. The moth-eaten rugs, alone, could have been sold at one time for enough money to have kept the old man supplied with plenty of food for many months. "If he wouldn’t sell anything in the house," she reflected, "it stands to reason that he wouldn’t part with a foot of his land. I’ll bet Jim can count on a sure ten thousand dollars, anyway, when his uncle dies."
    "Tell me more about Mr. Frayne, Dad," she said as they stretched out in two beach chairs on the terrace. "You know, what he was like before he got so queer."
    "He and his wife were a charming old couple," her father told her. "They were so kind to us when we first moved up here that I can never forget it, no matter how unneighborly he became later. Your mother and I have always thought that if only he’d had children, he wouldn’t have become such a complete recluse when his wife died. He was very fond of children—they both were—especially fond of little boys. Every time they