The secret of the Mansion

find where it’s hidden."
    She led the way across the clearing. "Come on, let’s peek through a window." Honey followed very reluctantly.
    There was something so gloomy and forbidding about the weather-beaten old house that even Trixie found herself whispering as they approached it. The downstairs windows were almost as dirty as the upstairs ones, and she had to wipe a spot on the glass in order to peer inside. "Honey," she said, "this must have been the dining room, once. Look at that sideboard—it’s white with mold, and did you ever see so much junk in all your life?"
    The room was piled high with yellowed newspapers, tin cans, and cardboard cartons of every description. Stacked on the sideboard, table, and chairs were dirty bottles and jars of all sizes and shapes.
    "I'll bet all those boxes and cans and jars are full of money," Trixie said in an awed voice. "I wish we dared go inside."
    Honey shuddered. "I wouldn’t go in there for anything in the world. It’s probably full of spiders and rats. And this is the very window where I saw a face early this morning."
    Trixie stared thoughtfully. "Did you really and truly see someone, Honey? Are you sure you weren’t just imagining?"
    "Cross my heart and hope to die," Honey said. "Someone or something was staring at Daddy and me as we rode away."
    "It might have been a tramp," Trixie said slowly. "And one way to find out is to see if any of the doors or windows are unlocked. If they are, we ought to lock them to make sure nobody breaks in here while Mr. Frayne is in the hospital."
    She ran up the rickety front steps, which sagged dangerously beneath her weight, and twisted the doorknob back and forth. "That’s locked," she said as she jumped off the porch. "Let’s go check the windows."
    The front windows were all either locked or warped out of shape, but the first one Trixie tried on the east side of the house opened rather easily. "I’ll have to go in and lock it from the inside," she said, climbing over the ledge.
    "Then how will you get back out again?" Honey demanded.
    "The key to the back door is probably in the lock," Trixie said. "After I’ve checked all the windows, I’ll let myself out that way, then lock the back door from the outside and give Dad the key to keep for Mr. Frayne. Come on in and help me."
    "I don’t think we ought to go in," Honey said nervously. "As you said yourself, it’s against the law."
    "I’m not breaking any law," Trixie said exasperatedly. "I’m only doing what any neighbor would do for another. If Mr. Frayne were conscious, he’d probably ask us to make sure his house was all locked up." Something scuttled across the floor as Trixie jumped down from the windowsill. "Nothing but a field mouse," she told Honey with a mischievous grin, "He’s more scared of us than you are of him. But you’d better climb inside. That hen might come back any minute."
    Honey glanced fearfully over her shoulder. "I guess you’re right," she said. "It wouldn’t be neighborly to leave the place unlocked." She swung herself gingerly through the window. "But suppose the face I saw belonged to a tramp," she whispered. "And suppose the tramp is still here."
    Trixie shrugged. "Then we’ll tell him to get out or we’ll call the police. Come on, let’s be sure the key is
    in the back door before we check the windows."
    This room, which had once been the luxurious study, was as cluttered as the dining room. The pictures and prints on the walls were thickly coated with dust, and a barricade of barrels blocked the other windows. The huge rolltop desk was fuzzy with mold, and mice had obviously been nesting hi the upholstery of the leather-covered sofa. A green fly droned monotonously against a windowpane, but there was no other sound to break the eerie silence of the old house. It was like the threatening hush that comes before a thunderstorm. The girls picked their way across the room, walking on tiptoe, hardly daring to whisper. At the entrance to the next room, Trixie stopped with a gasp of surprise.
    The enormous paneled living room was filled with debris, and lying sound asleep on an old mattress in the middle of the floor was a tall redheaded boy. Close beside him was a shotgun, and near his head was a silver christening mug that gleamed in the sunlight which poured in through an open window.
    Honey pointed a trembling finger at the boy. "That must be the face I saw this morning," she whispered.
    Trixie looked at her blankly. "At least,