The Indian Burial Ground Mystery (10 page)

Trixie had
no idea how long they’d
been sitting in the cave, but she could see from the angle of the sun glancing
in through the opening that it was probably late afternoon.

“This is ridiculous,” Trixie said finally. “I’m going to explore this
cave. There has to be another way out.”

“Oh, Trixie,” Honey said, sounding frightened, “please be careful. All I
can think of is those stories I’ve heard about people who get lost exploring in
underground caves. Wouldn’t you rather sit here and wait for someone to come
and rescue us?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Trixie replied firmly. “And I promise I’ll be careful,
so please don’t worry.”

“Do you think I should go with you?”

“No. You stay right there. Besides, I might not be going anywhere,”
Trixie said with a laugh. She stood up and switched on her flashlight. Shining
it along the edges of the cave walls, she began to examine the grim place with
great care. Trixie judged that the cave was about nine feet deep, and not
large. It was like a small subterranean room. Unfortunately, the walls were
fairly straight and smooth, with no rock outcroppings to get a foothold on.
Tree roots had broken through in places and they hung down eerily, like long,
grasping fingers reaching out.

Upon closer examination, Trixie noticed that the walls were made of
dirt, not rock. She had always thought that caves had rocky walls, but this one
seemed to have slimy, mud walls.
Ugh,
she thought.
No
wonder they had been so impossible to climb.

There didn’t seem to be any openings other than the one in the roof. But
all the hanging roots made Trixie think there might be an opening hidden behind
the tangled growth.
I hope there are no bats, or rats, or anything else
in here,
she thought with a shudder.

She moved closer to one side of the cave where a gnarled, wet-looking
spray of roots stuck through the wall. Reaching up to pull aside some of the
finer branches, Trixie jumped in alarm as a small bug skittered across her
hand. She held back a scream, not wanting to upset Honey. But there was no
opening hidden by the roots; just a slimy, blank wall of mud and dirt. She
checked each root clump, but found the same thing each time.

As Trixie explored the small cave, she began to notice something unusual
about it. Carefully, she retraced her steps just to make sure that she wasn’t
jumping to any incorrect conclusions. Finally she couldn’t keep quiet any
longer.

“This place has a funny shape for a cave,” she said to Honey. “It looks
almost square. I doubt that Mother Nature would make a square cave.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Honey said.

“Let me see .. Trixie muttered to herself. “I wonder if...”

Picking up a loose rock, Trixie began to scrape away at the dirt on one
of the walls.

After a few good long pulls, she began to scrape harder and faster. It
was just as she’d suspected.

“Hey! This isn’t a cave at all,” Trixie exclaimed. “It’s an old cellar!”

“A cellar?” Honey said with a gasp.

“Look at this,” Trixie said, shining the flashlight where she’d been
scraping. “These are evenly laid stones. This is an old foundation!”

Honey leapt to her feet. Sure enough, just as Trixie had said, the wall
was made of perfectly fitted square blocks. The stones looked like hewn
granite.

Before Trixie or Honey could think about their next move, they heard a
noise outside. It was the sound of a shovel striking stone.

Trixie quickly put her finger to her lips. Reddy, happily full of
bologna sandwiches, was sleeping peacefully in the corner.

“I’m pretty sure it’s Charles Miller,” Trixie whispered. “Keep quiet.
Maybe he won’t find…”

“Why should we be quiet?” Honey whispered back, perplexed. “Why can’t we
yell, so he can save us?”

“Because he may
not
save us, that’s why,” Trixie hissed.
“He’s the one who hits people on the head for interfering with his silly
treasure hunt! What do you think he’s going to do to us once he finds out we’re
still snooping around here?”

“I don’t care!” Honey wailed. “I don’t like it down here—it’s cold and
creepy. I want to go home. I’m going to yell for help.”

“Okay, okay,” Trixie said forlornly. “We might as well start yelling.
But I still don’t feel right about it.”

They both began to shout as loudly as they could. Reddy immediately woke
up and started barking, too. Suddenly the shovel noise stopped, and they could
hear twigs snapping as Charles started looking for the place the voices were
coming from, He seemed to be having a hard time of it.

“Over here!” Trixie yelled. “But be careful! We’re down a hole, and we
can’t get out!”

A few moments later, Charles Miller stuck his head through the opening
and looked at them in great surprise.

“What are you doing down there?” he asked, incredulous.

“We’re stuck, silly,” Trixie said, getting very annoyed. “If we could
get out, then we’d be out, wouldn’t we?”

“Please help us,” Honey pleaded. “Do you have a rope or something? It’s
awful down here.”

For a moment Charles was silent. A number of conflicting emotions seemed
to flicker across his face—surprise, anger, fear. It was the expression of fear
that worried Trixie the most. If Charles Miller really did have something to
hide, all her worst thoughts would prove correct. Then he spoke.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”

“You
have
to help us,” Honey wailed. “Maybe,” Charles said
with a nasty smile. “But I have to do something first.”

“What do you mean, ‘do something’?” Trixie shouted.

Charles pulled his head out of the opening. “Don’t go away now!” he said
with a grim laugh.

“I told you,” Trixie muttered. “Let’s find a stick or a big rock. We
should at least try and protect ourselves.”

Trixie bent down to pick up a large rock, but before she could curl her
fingers around it, Charles dropped down into the cave. He landed with a thud on
the ground next to her. The knotted end of a heavy rope struck him on the
shoulder.

“Ouch!” he yelped.

“Quick, Honey,” Trixie commanded, “grab the rope and let’s get out of here!”

But Honey didn’t move quickly enough. Charles reached behind him and
held the rope out of their reach.

“Not so fast, girls,” he said. “There are a few things we have to
discuss.”

“Really?” Trixie said innocently. “I don’t think we have anything to discuss.”

“Oh yes, we do, Miss Belden,” he said menacingly. “Like the fact that
you two have been snooping around me and this site since I first got here. And
I know why, too.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Trixie said in
her haughtiest tone of voice. “Now please, help us get out of here.”

“Not before you explain what you’re doing in
my
cave,
looking for
my
treasure. For all I know, you’ve already found it,
and have it hidden somewhere in here. You’re not leaving until you hand it over.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Trixie said sweetly. But
she cast a warning glance at Honey. “Treasure? What treasure?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Charles said menacingly. He
began to shine his flashlight all around the small underground room as if
looking for something. “I happen to know that there’s a hidden stash of gold
down here. Just because you two are rich, doesn’t mean you can take it from me.
You don’t need it, anyway. And I’m not going to let two dumb, rich girls stand
in the way of what I need.”

“For your information,” Trixie began, “I’m not rich, and...”

Honey, who had been listening quietly, suddenly stood up. She
interrupted Trixie and started yelling at Charles. “You can’t talk to us that
way,” she snapped. Trixie was surprised at Honey. She’d hardly ever seen her
get angry. “It’s not your fault that you’re poor, and it’s not my fault that my
parents have money. You have no right to be so nasty. Besides, your dumb
treasure couldn’t be down here, because this isn’t a cave—it’s a cellar. Look!”

Grabbing Trixie’s flashlight out of her hand, Honey directed the beam at
the section of wall Trixie had scraped clean earlier.

“See? Nice square building stones—a cellar!”

There was a moment of silence. Then, to both girls’ amazement, Charles’s
face crumpled. He began to cry.

Trixie and Honey were shocked.

“What did I say that was so bad?” Honey whispered to Trixie.

“I don’t know,” Trixie whispered back. “What do we do now?”

The girls stood still and watched quietly as Charles Miller’s shoulders
shook, and sobs of anguish came brokenly from behind the hands that covered his
face.

Soon it was over. Charles gave a shuddering sigh and wiped his hand
across his eyes. It left a dirty smudge across the bridge of his nose.

“What an idiot I am,” he mumbled. “Now I have no money, and I won’t be
able to pay my tuition anymore. I had thought the gold would make it easier,
make it possible for me to get my Ph.D. I can’t go on like this, doing part-time
jobs and being so tired all the time. I can’t even study anymore. There’s no
time. And what’s worse, my grades are going down, so I’m probably going to lose
the small scholarship I have. I guess I’ll have to quit school and forget about
ever being an archaeologist.” Trixie could see by the expression on Honey’s
face that the kind-hearted girl was starting to feel sorry for Charles Miller.
But not Trixie. She was feeling cautious. Maybe Charles Miller was deliberately
trying to
make
her feel sorry for him. Was all this crying an act
to throw them off the scent?

“I’m sure it’s hard having to quit school,” she began, never letting her
eyes leave Charles’s face. “But if you knew there was treasure down here, why
did you bother to break into people’s houses and steal paintings and silver?”

“Break into? Steal?” Now it was Charles’s turn to be shocked.

“Trixie!” said Honey, horrified.

“That’s right,” Trixie continued. “I think all this moaning and groaning
of yours is just an act. You’re part of the burglary ring that’s been breaking
into the
Westchester
mansions —the Wheelers’
house, too. I would think the money you got from selling all those stolen goods
would be more than enough to cover your tuition.”

Charles stood up with a look of complete dismay on his face. “I don’t
know what you’re talking about,” he said. “I’d never do anything like
that—never in a million years. What kind of a person do you think I am?”

“Do you really want to know?” Trixie asked coldly.

Trixie took
a deep breath and squared
her shoulders. Before telling Charles everything she knew, however, she decided
to ask him to help them out of the old cellar first.

“I’ll have a much better idea about the kind of person you are if you
help us get out of here,” she said quietly.

“Sure. Of course,” Charles mumbled. “I wasn’t planning not to, you
know.”

“We know that,” Honey said reassuringly. She cast an irritated look at
Trixie.

“I mean, why do you think I tied one end of the rope to the tree up
there before I joined you two in this hole in the ground?” Charles said
sarcastically. “If I only wanted to yell at you, I could have done that easily
enough from outside.”

“Maybe we should let Honey go first,” Trixie said. “My only worry is how
we’ll get Reddy out of here.”

“No problem,” Charles said firmly. “I’ll go last, and I’ll carry him in
my arms. If I tie the rope around my waist, you two can pull us both up.”

“I hope so,” Trixie said as she watched Honey climb up the rope hand
over hand. Using the thick knots Charles had made in the rope as footholds, she
inched her way up and out of the old cellar.

“Okay,” Charles said when Honey was safely out. “You next, Trixie.”

“Gee,” Trixie said as she started up the rope, “I’m glad I learned
rope-climbing in gym last year. Who knew it was going to come in handy like
this?”

As her head poked out through the hole by the tree stump, she took a
deep and grateful breath of fresh air. Then she dusted herself off and called
down to Charles.

“Now tie the rope around yourself and see if you can pick up Reddy.”
Reddy was jumping up and down excitedly, getting muddy paw prints all over
Charles’s shirt. Trixie knew the dog was worried they were going to leave him
behind. “Don’t worry, boy,” Trixie called down to Reddy. “We’re going to get
you out, too.”

Charles tied the rope firmly around his waist, then he bent down and
gathered the squirming dog in his arms. Draping Reddy awkwardly over his
shoulder, he held onto the dog with one arm, and the rope with the other.

Meanwhile, Trixie had checked to see that the rope was knotted firmly
around the tree stump. Then both girls got tight grips on the knotted rope.
They began to pull with all their might. It wasn’t easy. Charles probably
weighed one hundred and forty pounds, at least. Reddy was a sixty-pound Irish
setter. Two hundred pounds all together!

But taking it slowly, and moving their hands carefully from one knot to
the next, the girls were finally able to pull Charles and Reddy up the wall.

As his front paws cleared the opening, Reddy leapt ahead. Charles
managed to pull himself the rest of the way out. Trixie and Honey fell backward
onto the ground, their arms aching from exertion.

“Whew!” Trixie finally said. “That was hard.”

Charles dusted himself off, and said to Trixie, “Now, tell me why you
think I’m a burglar.”

Trixie, startled for a moment by the young man’s worried expression,
straightened her back slowly and then stood up. “I appreciate your help, I
really do. But I’m still suspicious. There are too many things about you that
don’t add up.”

“Like what?”

Trixie took a deep breath. “First of all, there has been a rash of
burglaries in this area—all mansions and all in the last few weeks. So far,
none of the burglars have been caught. Just last night, someone tried to rob
the Manor House. But they got away with only the small Renoir. Maybe you
remember it?”

Trixie saw that Charles looked upset, but she went right on. “The first
time we met, you were very interested in that painting. You asked if it was
real.”

“I was merely surprised that anyone would have a real Renoir in their
house,” Charles began quietly. “I thought paintings like that were only in
museums.” Then he became more defensive. “Besides, I could not have been in
Sleepyside committing a burglary when I was in
New York City
. I work nights, you know.”

“That’s what
you
say,” Trixie said, “but maybe that’s just
an alibi. The burglars were interrupted in the middle of the burglary by Miss
Trask. They accidentally banged the fender of their car on the oak tree at the
curve in the driveway when they made their getaway. Miss Trask heard the noise.
When I looked at the tree, there was yellow paint on it. That little yellow
Volkswagen your friend Harry drives has a dented front fender. We saw it parked
in the woods when we came here today. How do you explain that?” Charles looked
surprised. “There were no dents in the car that I know of,” he said.

“Right,” said Trixie. “But today there are, so the scrape is new. Harry
is a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

“Harry Kemp? Yes and no.”

“And another thing,” Trixie went on, feeling more confident in her
accusations, “Professor Conroy was knocked unconscious soon after he’d spoken
with you about letting us work at the village site. He thinks he banged his
head on a low-hanging branch. But
I
think you hit him.

“In order to get him out of the way until you found your hidden gold,
you made sure he’d be in the hospital for at least ten days. That way, as
student head of the dig, you would have complete freedom to look for the
treasure. And you knew where it was hidden because you found the map at the
Historical Society.”

“How did you know about that map?” Charles gasped.

“The same way you did—by looking in the archive room at the Historical
Society. It was in Edward Palmer’s diary.” Now Trixie was starting to get
angry. “How can you claim you’re above stealing if you stole the diary? I even
saw Harry waiting outside the Historical Society for you!”

“You mean it’s missing?” Charles said, horrified. “I never stole the
diary. What was Harry doing there?”

“How should I know?” Trixie snapped.

“And if you didn’t steal it, who did? It’s gone, and I saw you running
off with it. I was looking out the window of the archive room at about
three-thirty that afternoon—you know, the same day you went there with Brian.
Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

“Three-thirty?” Charles said angrily. “I wasn’t there then. We went in
the morning. You can ask Brian.”

“Why should I?” said Trixie. “I’m sure you wouldn’t steal the book right
out from under his nose. That’s why you went back to get it that afternoon.”

Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I didn’t steal the book. The big
question is, who else would want Edward Palmer’s diary?”

“But I
saw
you,” Trixie said firmly.

“You only
think
you saw me. Let me think a minute. You say
you saw Harry Kemp waiting outside the Historical Society, so it could have
been Harry who stole the book. We can’t be sure. By the way, he’s not really my
friend, he’s a friend of Professor Conroy’s. I didn’t meet him until the day we
were packing for the dig. And the Volkswagen belongs to Professor Conroy, not
to Harry. You can check the registration if you like.”

“And I suppose Harry was the ghost, too?” Trixie asked smugly.

Charles suddenly looked very shamefaced. His ears turned bright red.
“Look, I’m really sorry about that stunt,” he said, staring at his hands. “I
wanted to scare you girls away from the treasure.”

“Ah-hah!” Trixie whooped. “You admit it. I thought you were in
New York
that night,
working at your job.”

“It was my night off,” Charles said sullenly. “I didn’t scare you
enough, though. You came back the very next day.”

“Now that we have established that you were in Sleepyside the night of
the burglary,” Trixie said, “you could have broken into the Wheeler mansion.”

“I could have,” Charles snapped. “But I didn’t!”

“Wait a minute, Trixie,” Honey interrupted. “I just realized something.
We saw the ghost at the same time the burglars were in my house.”

Trixie pulled herself up short, then she looked at Charles. “That’s
true,” she murmured, squinting her eyes thoughtfully. “One person can’t be in
two places at the same time.”

“Am I cleared of guilt yet?” Charles asked harshly.

Trixie thought for a moment. Then she said, “No. You could still be
involved with Harry, whether you were in the house that night or not. Besides,
how did Harry find out about the gold if he’s not your friend? You were pretty
worried when you thought Honey and I were about to discover your secret. So why
would you tell Harry?”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to tell that weasel about the gold,” Charles
said bitterly.

“He was loading my stuff on the truck the day we were leaving to come up
here,” Charles went on to explain. “One of the cartons fell off the back of the
truck and broke open. He saw my papers and notes. He said he’d help me look if
I gave him some of the gold when we found it. And I needed the help. I knew I’d
be working at the dig during the day, and at my job at night. That wouldn’t
leave much time in between. I knew that once he’d found out about the gold, he
was going to help me look whether I wanted him to or not. So I figured that
sharing it was better than letting him take it all for himself.”

“That still doesn’t explain the burglaries,” Trixie said, pressing on.
“If what you say is true—that the yellow car is Professor Conroy’s, and Harry
Kemp is
his
friend—then you’re really accusing Professor Conroy
and Harry of breaking into the Manor House last night. How do I know you aren’t
just covering yourself by accusing someone else?”

“I tell you, I’m not a burglar!”

“But you’re saying that a close friend of the Wheelers—Professor
Conroy—is a burglar.”

“Wait a minute,” Honey said. “Maybe neither Charles nor Professor Conroy
is a burglar. Maybe Harry Kemp is, and the professor doesn’t know anything
about it.”

“The two of them are very close friends, I tell you,” Charles said
shrilly. “Harry’s in his tent all the time talking business, although I can’t
imagine what that business could be.”

“That’s a nasty claim to make about a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler,
Charles,” Trixie said smugly. “You know that Professor Conroy couldn’t be the
burglar. He’s in the hospital with a concussion. He can’t even get out of bed.”

“Actually,” Honey said quickly, “I don’t think Professor Conroy is a close
friend of my parents.”

Honey looked a little embarrassed, then she continued. “I didn’t
remember hearing my father ever mention him, so I asked Miss Trask. She told me
that he came to my father with a letter of introduction from Professor Ingles
at
Oxford
University
. My father has known
Professor Ingles for years, so it’s almost the same, I guess. He didn’t bother
to check directly because Professor Ingles was in the
Sudan
on a dig,
and my parents were on their way out of the country. But checking hardly seemed
necessary. Professor Conroy was so nice, and he
did
invite all of
us to join the dig.”

“Whether he’s a real friend or not is beside the point,” Trixie
maintained stiffly. “He’s in the hospital. How can he rob houses if he can’t
get out of bed?”

As soon as she said those words, Trixie gasped. A disturbing picture had
just popped into her mind.

“The shoes!” she yelped. “How could I have missed such a big clue!”

“What shoes?” Honey asked, perplexed. “You’re always talking in riddles,
Trixie.”

“When I looked in on Professor Conroy this morning, I saw his shoes next
to the bed,” Trixie said. “They were caked with damp mud! That means he was
wearing them outside, and very recently—like last night.”

“That’s right,” Charles agreed, frowning with concentration. “And that’s
the one part of this mystery that didn’t add up until now.”

“What didn’t add up?” Trixie asked archly. “I thought my reasoning was
perfect.”

Charles smiled. “It was. But since you wouldn’t believe anything I said,
I didn’t feel like telling you that, as far as I knew, Professor Conroy was
never unconscious. You told me that he said he banged his head at night, and
woke up later in the hospital. That indicates he was unconscious.

“But when I spoke to him that morning he was fine,” Charles continued.
“He said he’d knocked his head, and that Harry was going to drive him to the
doctor’s office for his allergy medicine. But that was all. So when you told me
about the concussion, it didn’t add up.”

“You’re right,” Honey said. “But why did Conroy make up that story and
get stuck in the hospital?”

“I know why,” said Trixie. “He needed an airtight alibi. Maybe he was
afraid the police were closing in on him. If he is the burglar, we have to
prove it.”

“But how?” asked Charles. “Yesterday’s airtight alibi is going to be
just as airtight today.” Trixie began pacing up and down. “Just give me a
minute,” she said. “I think I may have a plan, and it just might work. But we
have to get everybody in on it. That’s going to be the hard part.”