The Secret of the Unseen Treasure

it swivels back and forth on its mounting,” Max said, kneeling. “See? I’ll just pull it—” He stopped suddenly, and his face reddened. He fingered the bottom of the pipe for a moment, then hunched down low to examine it. Max turned and looked from person to person, stopping at Dan. “There’s a hole in the pipe,” he said flatly.
    “I didn’t mean to break it!” Bobby wailed. “I’m sorry!”
    “You didn’t break it,” Max said, not taking his eyes off Dan. “It looks like somebody cut a hole in it.” The two young men stared at one another for a moment. “You knew about this, didn’t you?” Max asked Dan. “Why didn’t you say something? The new pump would have been ruined, too.”
    “I discovered it just before you got here,” Dan admitted. “I thought maybe it would be better if you found it yourself.”
    “Oh, dear,” Mrs. Elliot said in a worried tone. “More vandalism. Will the whole pipe have to be replaced?”
    “No,” Dan assured her. “Just that horizontal length. In the meantime, we should be able to patch that up.” He kneeled beside Max. “Have you got an old piece of inner tube and a couple of hose clamps?” he asked.
    Max nodded. “In the shed. I’ll be right back.” When Max was out of sight, Mrs. Elliot sighed. “I’m sorry for the way Max has been acting,” she said. “Things haven’t gone too well since he came back from the city, and he can’t help but feel that somehow he’s to blame.”
    “That’s all right; we understand,” Trixie assured her.
    “I’d like to think that someday this farm will be his,” Mrs. Elliot went on, “but—”
    “That won t be for a long, long time,” Honey interrupted.
    “Thank you, dear,” Mrs. Elliot said.
    Trixie was curious. “You make it sound like Max won t be here. Do you think he’s going to, uh, leave again?”
    “Oh, nothing like that,” Mrs. Elliot said. She shook her head. “It’s just that, well... he doesn’t seem to want to own the place. I offered to have the deed put in his name now, but he refused. I offered him co-ownership, too, but he didn’t want any part of that, either.”
    Before Trixie could say anything, Max returned with the mending materials. “This’ll just take a few minutes,” Dan told the others. “Go ahead and have some lemonade. Max and I will join you when we’re done.”
    “I’ll help Bobby get cleaned up first,” Honey said, taking his hand.
    “And I’m going to put the camera in the car,” Mart added, “so he doesn’t trip over that!” While they were pouring tall glasses of iced lemonade, Trixie asked Mrs. Elliot, “Have other bad things happened recently? Have there been other acts of vandalism?”
    “Yes.” Mrs. Elliot nodded. “I just can’t understand it. It’s so cruel and senseless. And it’s happened so often, it’s almost as if someone purposely....” Her voice trailed off.
    “What sort of things?” Trixie asked.
    “My bed of snapdragons, for instance.” Mrs. Elliot smiled wanly. “Isn’t that a fierce name for such a beautiful flower?”
    Trixie nodded. Mrs. Elliot went on. “Man-ton’s, the flower shop in White Plains, ordered several dozen of them recently. I had an extra nice batch coming along. On the morning I was to cut and deliver them, someone had romped through them, trampling almost all of them down.”
    “Oh, no!” Trixie exclaimed. “Did you see any footprints? Could it have been a dog or a deer?”
    “There was no way to tell. Max and I tried to find any flowers that could be saved, but there weren’t enough. I’d been counting on the sale of those flowers.”
    Trixie frowned. “Were there other things, too? Other suspicious ‘accidents’?”
    Tm afraid so,” Mrs. Elliot said. “A few weeks ago, Max and I took a delivery to White Plains. When we came back to the truck after doing a little shopping, one of the tires had been slashed. The service station man couldn’t repair it. I had to buy a new tire.”
    “Mrs. Elliot,” Honey called from the porch. “There’s a telephone call for you.”
    “Excuse me, dear,” Mrs. Elliot told Trixie. “Why don’t you take Max and Dan a glass of lemonade? I’ll be right back.”
    Honey and Bobby joined her as Trixie put two glasses of lemonade and several cookies on a tray.
    “Here’s another cookie for you,” Honey told Bobby affectionately.
    “Don’t go falling on that one,” Trixie warned him with a smile. She took the tray to the well.
    The