The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder

by Campbell, Julie

  When Trixie turned her head to find out why, she saw that Honey’s eyes were staring straight ahead and had widened in horror. Trixie soon discovered the reason.

  Without warning, another bicycle rider had shot out from a side trail immediately in front of them.

  Even while Trixie backpedaled desperately in a futile attempt to stop, Honey was shouting, “Watch out! Oh, please, watch out!”

  But it was too late!

  Trixie had a brief glimpse of the other rider’s startled face turned toward her. Wildly, she yanked at her handlebars and swerved toward the edge of the road.

  Then she felt her back wheel skid uncontrollably on a patch of mud, while her front wheel slid obstinately toward the trunk of a thick spruce tree.

  Seconds later, she felt herself falling, and the ground was coming up to meet her.

  Trixie lay still, gasping for breath and trembling with shock. She was too frightened even to move. She had a horrid suspicion that if she did try to move, she’d find she had broken every bone in her body!

  She felt someone bending over her and a voice, close to tears, repeating over and over, “Oh, Trixie, are you all right? Say something. Speak to me. Oh, Trixie, are you all right?”

  Trixie groaned and moved first one leg and then the other. No pain. Nothing was broken. Gingerly, she sat up and stared down at her Bob-White jacket.

  Someone last night, probably Celia, had sponged off the worst of the mud from the encounter outside the stable. Now it was worse than ever. Lumps of mud and bits of dead leaves and small twigs clung to the front of it.

  “There, you see?” a man’s voice said. “I told you she was all right. Nothing to make a fuss about at all!”

  Trixie glanced up and saw Honey’s worried face bent toward her. Behind her stood an elderly man, dressed, incredibly, in walking shorts and wearing a torn red flannel shirt. His thin white hair stood out from his head, and his bright blue eyes stared at her with almost clinical detachment.

  “You were speeding, Trixie Belden!” he announced, gazing at her unsmilingly.

  “At least I wasn’t racing through the woods,” Trixie retorted. “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Of course I’m not all right,” the old man snapped. “You scared the living daylights out of me, to say nothing of almost breaking your own fool neck. Now I suppose you’re going to tell me you expect me to provide milk and cookies for the two of you.”

  Bewildered, Honey was looking from one to the other of them. “But we don’t expect you to do anything of the kind,” she protested, “do we, Trix?”

  Trixie nodded her head slowly. “Oh, yes. I think milk and cookies would be the least we should have.” She sighed and slowly got to her feet. She felt herself all over. “I’m okay, I guess.” She stared sternly at the white-haired man. “But if I’d broken any bones, I’d have expected far more than cookies. I’d want chocolate cake, at least.” Surprisingly, the old man chuckled. “I might be able to find you a piece of chocolate cake, at that.” He looked at Honey, his eyes twinkling. “You, too, girlie.”

  Trixie hid a smile at the expression on Honey’s face. She guessed that her friend didn’t like being called “girlie” any more than Trixie did. But Trixie knew that it was useless to argue about it. Trixie had tried many times before.

  “Honey,” Trixie said, “I’d like you to meet Grandpa Crimper. He used to own Crimper’s department store, you know.”

  “Still do,” Grandpa muttered, “except they won’t let me run it anymore. They say I’m too old. Lot of nonsense! I’m as young as I ever was.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Crimper,” Honey said uncertainly. “I’m Honey Wheeler.”

  “Call me Grandpa, girlie,” the old man answered. “Your folks must be the ones who bought Manor House. Well, come on, come on! What are you doing hanging about? If you want chocolate cake, you’re going to have to come with me to get it. I don’t carry stuff like that around with me, you know. I don’t know what’s wrong with you young folks these days. Can’t think for y’selves at all. Have to tell you everything.” He glared at Trixie. “Are you coming or not?”

  Trixie was limping slightly as she walked over to the tree to examine her bike. Its front wheel was hopelessly buckled, and its back one was even bent out of shape.

  “Something tells me I’m going to have to walk,” she said slowly.

  “Do you good,” was the old man’s unsympathetic answer, “except you won’t have to. I seem to remember I’ve got a truck parked around here somewhere, if only I can think where I left it.” Trixie frowned. “I don’t understand. What were you doing driving a truck if you were out riding your bike at the same time?”

  All at once, Grandpa Crimper grinned at her mischievously. “I fooled ’em back at the house,” he replied. “When they weren’t looking, I took the truck—and I threw Sonny’s bike into the back of it, too.”

  Honey stared at him, fascinated. “Sonny?“

  “That’s young Mr. Crimper,” Trixie whispered in her ear. “He’s the one who’s running the department store now. We saw him yesterday, remember?”

  “Yes,” Grandpa said, “Sonny didn’t want me to ride his bike. He didn’t want me to drive his truck, either. He says I’m not to be trusted with anything on wheels. Another lot of nonsense! I was driving before that boy was born! Well, come on! Let’s not hang about all day!” He turned and began walking away.

  “But I still don’t understand,” Trixie called after him. “Why were you riding the bike?”

  “I wanted to see if I could still do it,” Grandpa barked as he walked away. “And, of course, I could! Mind you, the stupid machine got damaged a little....”

  “Damaged a little” didn’t even begin to describe the bicycle in question. When the two girls followed the old man across the road, they found the Crimper bike almost completely demolished.

  It was a tangle of twisted metal.

  “It hit a tree,” the old man said in explanation, rubbing his long nose thoughtfully. “Good thing I wasn’t on it, though. I had the good sense to jump off. Wait here, you two. I’ll get the truck. Now, where did I park the dratted thing?”

  Still muttering to himself, he hurried away and was soon lost to view around the bend in the road.

  Honey frowned as she stared after him. “Are you sure you feel like going to his house, Trix? And are you really okay?”

  Trixie rolled up one leg of her blue jeans. “I’ve got a couple of bruises,” she confessed, “but other than that I’m fine.” She stared ruefully at her bike, which was now propped drunkenly against a bush close to the scene of the accident. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with those crooked wheels, though. I don’t think they’ll ever be the same. I wonder if they can be fixed.”

  “I expect Tom can do it, once he gets back tomorrow,” Honey replied absently, still staring thoughtfully along the road. “You know, Trix, I’ve heard you talk about old Mr. Crimper before, but he isn’t at all the way I’d pictured him.”

  Trixie chuckled. “Did you expect him to be an old-fashioned sort of person?”

  Honey swung around to face her. “That’s exactly it,” she said. “I thought he’d look—Victorian, I suppose—sort of like his department store. Very turn-of-the-century, if you know what I mean.” Trixie smiled. “I asked Dad about it once, because I remember thinking the same thing. Dad says that old Mr. Crimper is a very shrewd businessman—at least, he was. Many people in Sleepy-side like doing business at Crimper’s because it looks—”

  “Respectable?” Honey said.

  Trixie nodded. “And safe, and conservative, and unchanging. Even young Mr. Crimper sees the sense in that. He hasn’t altered anything ever since he took over the running of the place. I wonder if he ever will.”

  From somewhere far down the road, they heard the sound of a truck’s engine-start up.

  “Are you going to ask Mr. Crimper if we can stop and look for that scrap of material?” Honey asked.

  “I
don’t have to look for it,” Trixie answered. “I’ve already found it.”

  Honey’s hazel eyes opened wide as she watched her friend reach into her Bob-White jacket. A second later, Trixie was opening her hand. Lying in the palm of it was a small square of red flannel.

  Honey gasped. “It’s the clue we were looking for. But where did you find it?”

  “I was about to tell you that we’d reached the right place,” Trixie said, “when Grandpa Crimper shot out in front of me. This clue was the easiest one we’ve ever found. I fell on it, Honey!”

  Her friend was about to laugh, when she saw the expression on Trixie’s face. “Is there something else that’s worrying you?” she asked.

  Trixie nodded. “Didn’t you notice? Grandpa Crimper is wearing a torn red shirt. He’s also driving a truck.”

  Honey caught her breath. “But you don’t think—you couldn’t think—”

  “That he’s the Midnight Marauder?” Trixie frowned. “I don’t know. I can’t be sure. Oh, I’m so confused. None of it makes any sense, anyway. Everything that’s happened since yesterday morning seems crazy.”

  “Or the work of a crazy person,” Honey told her. “Do—do you think Grandpa Crimper is crazy?” She spoke in a low voice, as if she were fearful the old man would overhear her.

  Even Trixie looked around carefully before she shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure, Honey. My dad says he has got more eccentric as he’s grown older, but—”

  She broke off abruptly as the roar of an engine came closer.

  Suddenly there was a shrill scream of skidding tires, and a small truck hurtled around the corner. Trixie caught a brief glimpse of a figure at the wheel. He was wearing a red shirt, and he was grinning widely.

  In the next instant, the truck was headed straight toward the place where she was standing.

  The Next Victim • 15

  HONEY SCREAMED and yanked at Trixie’s arm.

  At the last possible second, however, the driver swerved away from the road’s edge and slammed on his brakes.

  Trixie was still breathing hard when Grandpa Crimper clambered nimbly to the ground.

  “See?” he said. “I haven’t lost m’touch at all. I wish Sonny could have seen me. Can’t drive? Lot of nonsense! Come on, you two. Get your bikes, and let’s put ’em in the back.”

  Trixie was still breathing hard two minutes later as she scrambled into the front seat beside Honey.

  “I thought you were going to run over me,” she told the old man as he clambered back into the driver’s seat.

  “Then the more fool you, Trixie Belden,” was all Grandpa answered, fumbling with the key in the ignition.

  Suddenly, the engine roared to life. Gears grated. Tires squealed on the road’s damp surface as Grandpa Crimper yanked hard on the steering wheel. The truck screeched into a wild, neck-jolting U-turn, and soon it was hurtling east along Glen Road.

  It was the wildest ride Trixie and Honey had ever had. Honey hung on to the dashboard, and Trixie fumbled to cling to the door’s armrest beside her.

  They discovered very shortly that Mr. Crimper didn’t bother to obey traffic signals. He made up his own. Twice he came to a stop sign, and twice he merely speeded up, stuck his head out of the window, and yelled, “Coming through!”

  By the time he had turned into the Crimpers’ driveway on Albany Post Road, Trixie and Honey couldn’t believe they were still in one piece.

  “I never thought we’d make it,” Trixie told her friend in an undertone.

  “I’m still not convinced we have,” Honey answered in a whisper as she stared with wide eyes

  at the tall, three-storied house in front of her.

  It looked like a Victorian mansion, quite unlike the neat frame houses that surrounded it. The Crimper house was built of yellow brick and trimmed with curlicue woodwork. Its wide front porch seemed to have been especially made for the two comfortable rocking chairs that stood there, and its lace-curtained windows appeared warmly inviting.

  “Nice effect, eh?” Grandpa Crimper said, watching Honey’s face. “Everyone expected me to have a house like this. So I built it myself.”

  Before Honey had a chance to answer, the front door swung open, and a gray-haired woman hurried toward them. She was followed by young Mr. Crimper, who began speaking as soon as he caught sight of his father.

  “I knew it!” he cried. “I knew Dad had taken the truck! He sneaked it out of here as soon as my back was turned.”

  The gray-haired lady sighed. “Really, Earl,” she said, looking at Grandpa, “why you do these things is beyond me. Didn’t you know how worried we’d be? Where in the world have you been? We’ve been going out of our minds thinking of what could have happened—”

  “Now, Mother,” the old man interrupted, “I only went for a short spin, and see? I’ve brought you a couple of visitors. Trixie”—he glanced at her wickedly out of the corners of his eyes—“insisted on having a piece of your chocolate cake. And this other girlie is Honey Wheeler. Her folks bought Manor House. Remember that place, Mother?”

  Trixie could tell that Grandpa Crimper had successfully diverted his wife’s attention.

  With cries of delight, she hurried to welcome them to her home. Soon she had shepherded the two girls inside and led them to the warm and fragrant kitchen.

  It was soon obvious, however, that Grandpa had not managed to placate his son. Even though Trixie did her best not to listen, she could hear young Mr. Crimper’s exasperated voice scolding his father. She guessed that the mangled bicycle had just been discovered.

  Trixie and Honey glanced at each other.

  “Is anything wrong?” Mrs. Crimper asked, glancing in the direction of the angry voices.

  When Honey had finished explaining what had happened, Mrs. Crimper looked horrified.

  “Oh, my dears!” she exclaimed. “Whatever must you think of that old rascal of mine? Lately, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another. And Sonny—I mean, Earl Junior—gets so worried about his father.”

  She had a worried frown on her face as she told the two girls that Grandpa had worked hard all his life. “But now that he’s retired,” she remarked, sighing, “it’s almost as if he hasn’t got enough to keep him busy. So he looks around for something to do—and usually finishes up getting into mischief. I often think he’s gone back to being a small boy again.”

  Trixie couldn’t help wondering if Grandpa’s “mischief” could include vandalism. She had had no chance to compare the scrap of material in her pocket with the tear in the old man’s shirt. Before she left this house, however, she was determined to do so.

  Mrs. Crimper insisted on making sure that Trixie’s injuries were nothing more than bruises. Then she sat both girls at the kitchen table and placed a huge slice of chocolate cake and a tall, frosty glass of milk in front of each of them.

  Trixie felt guilty as she accepted Mrs. Crimper’s hospitality. What would this nice grandmotherly woman say if she knew Trixie suspected her husband of being a thief?

  Honey was apparently having problems with this same thought, because she seemed unable to finish her piece of cake.

  “Aren’t you hungry, girlie?” a voice roared at Honey from the doorway.

  Grandpa strode into the room. A moment later, his son followed him. Judging from the expression on young Mr. Crimper’s face, he was still angry.

  “The girls are probably still in shock from the accident, Dad,” he announced, the color still high in his cheeks. “Trixie, we’ll see that your bicycle is fixed at once.”

  “Pah!” Grandpa said, seating himself at the kitchen table. He eyed the chocolate cake and then cut himself an enormous slice of it. “I don’t see why you’re making such a big fuss about nothing, Sonny,” he remarked with his mouth full. “I already told you. Trixie Belden was speeding—and the other girlie, too. It was a good thing I came along when I did. If I hadn’t, they both might’ve broken their fool necks.”

  As Honey
opened her mouth to protest this outrageously unfair statement, Trixie threw her a warning glance.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Grandpa,” she said meekly. “But for now, when you’ve finished eating, why don’t you show Honey your jewelry boxes?” Then, as her friend looked puzzled, she explained, “Grandpa’s been collecting them for years. Some of them are very old.”

  The jewelry boxes were also in a sad state of disrepair, as Honey discovered later, when she and Trixie followed the old man into the large living room of the old house.

  It was obvious that Grandpa Crimper didn’t think so. As he opened the door of the glass-fronted cabinet, where each jewelry box was proudly displayed, he lovingly fingered each one before handing it on to one or the other of the girls.

  “Some of these boxes,” he said, “have quite a history.” He reached out for a small black japanned box whose wooden lid was almost cracked in two. “This one, for instance, was once owned by a president’s wife.”

  “Martha Washington?” Trixie asked, hazarding a guess. “Dolly Madison?”

  “Nellie Murphy,” Grandpa answered promptly. “Her husband was once the president of Sleepy-side’s Businessmen’s Club.”

  Honey’s face fell. She looked politely at the row of small boxes, some with peeling paint on their exteriors, some with tarnished silver lids. Only one caught her eye, as Trixie had known it would. “Oh,” she said, reaching out to touch it with a gentle hand, “but this one is beautiful.”

  Made of delicate bone china, the small container was decorated with china rosebuds and tiny bunches of forget-me-nots. On its lid, a small ballerina wearing a white lace dress, with china arms uplifted, held a graceful pose.

  When Grandpa lifted the beautiful box from the shelf, Trixie heard once more the tinkling tune she remembered from early childhood. Mart, who had once listened to it with her, had said it was called “Greensleeves.”

  “There’s a tiny music box set inside the lid,” she explained to Honey as they listened, enchanted.