The Mystery of the Missing Heiress (14 page)

“Who was it?” Trixie asked.

“You can search me. I was going to walk to the house with Juliana, but she closed the car door before I could get out and told me not to bother. I watched through the window. All I could see was a man sitting in the car. I couldn’t tell who he was—probably wouldn’t know, anyway. Then—get this—Juliana didn’t go into Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house at all. She got in that car! She drove off with that guy. The whole thing seemed kooky to me.”

“Aha!” Mart said, twirling an imaginary moustache. “So you are seeing mysteries, too!”

Jim didn’t answer Mart. “All I can say,” he said, “is that I wish Spider Webster still lived at Mrs. Vanderpoels house. He’d know if something funny was going on.”

“Yeah,” Brian said, “Sergeant Molinson wasn’t thinking straight when he let Spider leave the Sleepyside police force... even if he would have had to raise his salary.”

“He was a friend to the Bob-Whites, all right, when we were in the jam with the thieves who tried to steal our antiques at the show.” Trixie sighed. “We could use him now.”

“You can say that again,” Dan agreed. “He didn’t think we were imagining things, especially Trixie and Honey, the way Sergeant Molinson does.” ‘“Yeah,” Jim said. “You’d think he’d learn sometime, wouldn’t you? The number of times Trixie has solved his cases for him!”

The Warning Signs are Gone! • 12

MOMS, where’s Janie?”

Trixie, in her Candy Striper uniform, came racing down the stairs.

Mrs. Belden put a sheet of cookies in the oven, closed the door, and answered, “I
do
wish you wouldn’t run everyplace, Trixie. Can’t you ever walk down the stairs?”

“I'll try. But where’s Janie? Look at the time... almost one o’clock. Jim and Honey will stop by for me in a minute. He’s taking us to the hospital today, because the brake on Honey’s bike has to be fixed. Where is Janie, Moms?”

“I don’t ask Janie to register in and out, dear. I imagine she’s in the garden. Or have you looked in her room?”

T just called down the hall. Didn’t you hear me? We’ll be late at the hospital if she doesn’t show up. If we’re late we’ll get demerits and spoil everything. She’s supposed to be here.”

“Why is Janie supposed to be here now?”

“She wanted to go to the hospital with us, to visit with the nurses and maybe Dr. Gregory. It was the last thing she said last night. I haven’t even seen her since breakfast, have you?”

“Yes... let me think... she wanted to help me with the baking, and I told her I had almost finished, and then—dear me, Trixie, I don’t remember what she said then. I think she said she was going to take a walk. She spends a lot of time in the woods. Just be a little patient; she’ll be here.”

“She’d better hurry. Jim and Honey are stopping the station wagon out there right now. She’s forgotten, that’s what. She’s forgotten all about it. Oh, well, she’ll have to go with us another day. Bye, Moms.” At the door Trixie met Honey coming in. “Why, Honey, what’s the matter?”

Honey threw herself down on a chair in the kitchen.

“Jim has me worried, and I’d like to hear what your mom thinks about it. He says he shouldn’t have left Juliana last night till he was sure she was safe in the house. He didn’t like that business of that green Buick out in front of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house. He didn’t like it at all. He says he should have found out who it was.”

“Oh, Juliana probably had a date with someone. She’s over twenty-one. Why was he so bothered? What did he do about it?” said Mrs. Belden.

“This morning he went over to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s. He wanted to make sure Juliana was all right. She
is
his cousin, after all. And she doesn’t have any friends in Sleepyside—at least, we didn’t think she had.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just this: Juliana wasn’t home, and it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning. Mrs. Vanderpoel said she had gone out, that someone had called her and she left.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“That’s what Jim asked, and Mrs. Vanderpoel said she didn’t know, because Juliana answered the telephone. I don’t think we need to worry about any lack of friends for Juliana. Mrs. Vanderpoel said she always gets to the telephone first to answer it and that ninety-nine percent of the calls are for her.”

Trixie nodded her head. “Of course, she
is
awfully attractive, and she did live for a long time in the Bronx. She probably knows a lot of people there. It isn’t so far away.”

“That isn’t all,” Honey went on. “Mrs. Vanderpoel told Jim our party must have lasted pretty late last night, because Juliana still hadn’t come home at one o’clock in the morning.”

“Well, see? She went someplace with that man in the green Buick,” Trixie said.

“I think I may have to remind you, Honey, of the same thing I spoke to Trixie about,” Mrs. Belden said. “She’s been worried because Janie isn’t here to go to the hospital with you, and Jim is concerned about Juliana’s actions. Both of these girls are over twenty-one, and I don’t imagine they want anyone to monitor their movements. In a way, I think it s rather funny.”

“What’s funny?” Jim asked from the doorway. “I didn’t know you were going to make a visit here, Honey. It’s time we were moving. Say, what’s so funny, Mrs. Belden?”

“The fact that ever since each one of you has passed from twelve to teen, Brian and Mart, too, your greatest obsession has been: ‘Don’t keep track of me every minute. I can take care of myself.’ Now look at you. Juliana is somewhere going about her business, and Janie probably forgot it was Candy Striper day and went off into the woods. Sometimes she takes a sandwich and stays for hours. She loves the woods as much as we do, who were born right here.

“Just go ahead to the hospital, girls. From what Trixie said, too, Jim, Juliana left in a huff last night and probably wants to be left alone. I’m sure she’s anxious for some word from Holland, so she can finish her business here and be off to join her friends.”

“Okay, I guess you’re right,” Jim said sheepishly. “We aren’t too consistent, are we? If
you
were in a thing about Trixie not showing up someplace, we’d think you were the prize worrywart. Okay, come on, kids.”

It was after five o’clock when the girls came back from the hospital. They found Mrs. Belden really disturbed.

“Janie hasn’t shown up yet,” she said. “I should have paid more attention to your concern about her when she wasn’t here to go to the hospital with you, Trixie.”

“Was Bobby with her? She always takes him.”

“Bobby wasn’t with her.” Mrs. Beldens strained voice showed her anxiety. “He’s spending the day with Terry and Larry Lynch.”

At the sound of Bobby’s name, Reddy barked sharply, startling Trixie. “Then
he
isn’t with her, either.” Trixie put her hand on the setter’s red head. “Jim?” she said, looking expectantly at Honey’s brother.

“Where are Brian and Mart?” he asked abruptly.

“I sent them off to the woods to look for Janie. I couldn’t wait any longer. They just left. They haven’t been gone long, and if you want to catch them, Jim, I think you can.”

‘TU go, too,” Trixie said quickly. “I’ll get a flashlight.”

“Me, too,” Honey added. “There are other flashlights in the station wagon. I’ll get them.”

“Hurry,” Mrs. Belden said. “If you’re going, go now and at least catch up with Jim. It’s better if you are with one of the boys.”

“Keep Reddy here, please, Moms,” Trixie called back to her mother. “We’d only have to spend half our time rounding him up.”

Near Mr. Maypenny’s house, the trio caught up with Brian and Mart. They were talking with Dan.

“I know the place she most always goes,” Dan told them. “There’s a stump there, and the grass is all tramped down. I’ve seen Janie sitting there reading a book. Follow me.”

They set off on the well-worn trail, but when they reached the stump, there was no Janie.

A paperback book of Robert Frost’s poems was there, though, opened and turned facedown. Janie’s wristwatch was there, too, turned faceup.

“Honey,” said Trixie shakily, “Janie
had
been watching the time! She
had
intended to be back to go to the hospital with us!” One of the poems was marked. As Trixie read the last line, “And miles to go before I sleep,” fear tightened its fingers around her heart.

Just past the place where Janie had rested, the trail narrowed and circled, leading to the top, high above the river. Shafts of pinkish light from the lowering sun outlined the tall, rough trunks of rugged pines. Their rustling green needles in the eerie quiet sent chills up Trixie’s spine.

Nobody spoke a word. Dan led the way, and Brian, Mart, Trixie, Honey, and Jim followed.

From time to time one of them broke the silence to call out sharply, “Janie! Janie! Janie!”

“She may have lost her way,” Dan said, whispering as one does when fearful and worried. “You go that way, Mart, you and Brian and Honey. Hunt for her back farther in the woods. Keep calling! We’ll go this way, Jim and Trixie and I. Farther along, the two paths come together.”

“Aren’t they liable to get lost themselves?” Trixie asked as they separated.

“They can’t,” Dan said. “They’ll see the signs.” The signs! At a sudden realization, Trixie’s heart almost stopped beating.
There aren’t any signs anywhere!

Dan and Jim had spurted ahead.

“Dan!” Trixie screamed. “Jim!” The boys stopped. “The warning signs! They aren’t here!” Trixie cried. “Janie couldn’t have seen them. She wouldn’t have known that the ground breaks away at the edge of the cliff. And you won’t be any good to anyone if you go diving over the cliff.”

“She’s right,” Dan said. “Beyond here that layer of earth is so thin that we’d just go down, head over heels.”

“But we
have
to look over that edge somehow,” Jim insisted. “Janie may be down there and hurt.”

“Have you found her?” Mart called, bursting through the undergrowth where the two paths came together.

“What’s the matter with everyone?” Honey, following Mart, asked in a shaking voice.

“The signs have been taken away,” Trixie groaned. “Janie didn’t know. She didn’t know!”

“The first thing to do,” Dan said quietly, “is to climb down the trail here—the one we use to go to the marsh. Trixie, you and Honey stay here and keep calling.”

Dan knows every inch of this forest,
Trixie said to herself.
We must trust him...do as he says.

“Down at the bottom of the bluff,” Dan called back as he followed the other boys, “we’ll know more than we do now.” His voice broke off.

Trixie moaned. “He means they
may
find Janie. I don’t believe she’s down there! Let’s keep on calling her.”

Desperately and frantically, the girls’ voices rose. “Janie, Janie! Janie! Where are you, Janie? Janie! Janie!”

After what seemed hours, the boys came scrambling back, their faces grim.

“We didn’t find Janie,” Dan said. “We did find something else.”

“The signs!” Mart exploded. “The warning signs, in a heap, all smashed to pieces!”

Trixie gasped, stifling a cry of terror.

“They must have been thrown from the cliff,” Brian said, “deliberately. When we find whoever did it-”

“That’s for later,” Jim said. His voice, quiet and reassuring, comforted Trixie. He went on. “We didn’t find Janie down there. That’s something for us to think about. Dan, you’ve got your hunting lantern with you. We’re going to need it, all right. We’ve only begun our search!”

Dan fastened the lantern to his shoulder. Its powerful beam cut through the fast-gathering mist curling up from the river.

“Come with me, Jim,” he said. “We’ll crawl along well back from the cliff*s edge. If there’s a broken place there, it may be where Janie could have slipped. If she did, she may have caught on something on the cliffside, beyond the reach of our voices.”

“She may not be able to answer, even if she hears our voices,” said Trixie, on the verge of tears.

“We’ll have to shine the light over the edge and try to locate her,” Dan said.

Quickly Trixie stepped between Dan and Jim. “Let me go,” she begged. “I’m so much lighter. I can crawl closer and see more.”

Jim started to speak, but with a rush of words Trixie stopped him. “
Please!
You can hold tight to my feet, both of you. There isn’t the slightest danger, not with you both holding on to me.”

Fifty feet beyond the path to the marsh, Dan paused, unhooked his light, and swung it up and down along the rim of the bluff. Trixie, shading her eyes, followed the movement of the beam till Dan, with a sigh, sank to one knee and said, “In a half a dozen places all along that cliff, the edge has broken off. Someone could have gone over. It’s almost dark, and I don’t know what to do next. Nobody is
sure
Janie came this far. No one is sure that she even came into the woods.”