The girls walked home as quickly as they could.
“See you tomorrow,” Honey said, as she left Trixie to walk up the driveway to the Manor House.
“Don’t work too hard on that English paper,” Trixie called. Then she started off toward Crabapple Farm. As she walked, she thought about the math test scheduled for tomorrow. She wondered whether there was any point in studying, since she hadn’t understood a single word of today’s lesson. Geometry was not one of her best subjects. She could hear the sound of Bobby’s happy laughter coming from the house. She opened the door and went inside.
“Trixie!” called Bobby. “Come up to my room! I want to show you all my new stuff!”
“Oh, Bobby,” said Trixie. “I thought we just cleaned up your room! Don’t tell me you brought in a whole bunch of new junk!”
“It’s not junk!” Bobby retorted. “And besides, after we cleaned up so nicely, there was lots more room in there for good stuff!”
“Dinner!” Helen Belden called from the kitchen. “And I need someone to finish setting the table. Where are all my helpers anyway? I feel like the Little Red Hen in here all by myself. No one wants to help me make supper, but they certainly want to help me eat it!”
“Sorry, Moms,” Trixie called. “I’ll be right there. I just want to hang up my jacket and wash up.”
“All right, dear,” Mrs. Belden answered. “But hurry. I’d like the table set before we sit down, not after we finish.”
Trixie set the table, and after dinner it was her turn to do the dishes. It was Mart’s turn to read Bobby his bedtime story, so Trixie got a chance to sit down with her pesky geometry problems—something she desperately needed to do. After getting Brian to explain isosceles and equilateral triangles for tomorrow’s math test, she was finally able to get ready for bed.
The next day, Trixie caught up with Honey in the hall after their last-period class.
“Oh boy,” she sighed. “That test was pretty bad. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to take math at all.”
“Don’t worry so much, Trixie,” Honey said, with a smile. “You always think you’ve failed those tests, and somehow you always manage to pass.”
“I know, I know,” Trixie said as they slammed their lockers closed and walked out to catch the school bus. “But one of these days, I may be right. Then will I ever be in trouble!”
“Well, worry about that when it comes,”
Honey said. “You’re doing fine now.”
As they strolled along the broad walkway in front of the school, Trixie suddenly heard a loud voice call their names.
“Miss Belden! Miss Wheeler! I think we’d better have a talk, young ladies!”
Trixie spun around, and stood face to face with a very angry-looking Carl Reid.
“My goodness, Mr. Reid,” she said, trying to smile despite the sinking feeling she had after seeing his expression. “What’s the matter?”
“The French doll is missing, and I have reason to believe that you two stole it!” came the grating reply. He held a slip of paper out so she could see it clearly. “Does this look familiar to you?”
Amazed, Trixie saw that it was a hall pass from school.
“I found this hall pass with your name on it right outside the back door of my shop. That door was open, and the doll was gone. Your only mistake was leaving a perfect clue lying on the ground.”
“B-But, Mr. Reid,” Honey stammered. “We didn’t take the doll!”
“I don’t have to listen to your lying excuses, you little thieves,” Mr. Reid said angrily. “I know why you spent all that time hanging around my store! You just wanted to steal something, that’s all!”
“We haven’t seen the doll since we brought it to you last week!” Trixie protested, shocked at his accusation. “And yesterday we were looking for Mrs. De Keyser’s dog near your store—that’s when the pass must have fallen out of—”
“A likely story, girls!” the angry man snapped. “You wretched teen-agers are all alike! Just no good. And believe me, I am not fooled by your innocent act!”
“We’ll help you find the doll, but, honestly, Mr. Reid, we didn’t—”
“That’s absolutely right, girls. You will help me find that doll, because you’re the ones who stole it.” Mr. Reid began to walk away. But before he’d gone more than two feet, he stopped and whirled back to them. “And I’m going to press charges against you if that doll isn’t back in my hands by tomorrow afternoon. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”
And with that, he stormed off and got into his car. The engine roared to life, and then the Mercedes-Benz screeched out of the school parking lot.
Shocked, and unable to move, Trixie and Honey stood glued to the spot. Then Trixie realized that school buses were beginning to pull out, and they ran for the Glen Road bus. On the way home they tried to think of some way to clear themselves. Of course they hadn’t stolen the doll, but they might not be able to prove it to Mr. Reid or to anyone else for that matter.
They got off the bus filled with dread.
“I’ll call you later, okay?” mumbled Honey as she trudged up the driveway. “Maybe I’ll think of something.”
“Right,” Trixie muttered. But she’d been racking her brains on the bus, and hadn’t been able to think of a single thing.
She couldn’t even figure out why Mr. Reid was so quick to accuse them of such a terrible crime. That pass—which must have dropped from her pocket—wasn’t proof. She had been to his shop a number of times, and furthermore she was at Mrs. De Keyser’s house every other day. Why, that pass could have fallen from her pocket on Mrs. De Keyser’s property and been blown by the wind across the hedge!
Stealing? The very idea of it upset her. Why, she wouldn’t even borrow a dime from someone without paying it back!
9 * The Clue in the Dress
TRIXIE FELT terribly depressed, and at dinner she could barely push the food around on her plate, much less eat any of it. Worried, Helen Belden finally asked her if she was feeling all right.
“I’ve never seen you look like this, Trixie,” she said, resting her hand lightly on the worried girl’s forehead. “Are you sick?” Trixie broke down and burst into tears. “Oh, Moms,” she sobbed. “The most terrible thing has happened.”
The whole story came pouring out as the shocked Belden family listened in silence.
“Listen, Trixie,” Brian finally interrupted. “You mustn’t cry so hard. You know very well that no one would ever believe that you and Honey had stolen an antique doll.”
“Oh, Brian,” Trixie said, as the tears poured down her face. “But what if this time they do?”
“Now Trixie,” Mr. Belden said reassuringly. “What Brian says is true. And I want you to calm down. Stop worrying for a minute or two. Perhaps you can remember something that would help Mr. Reid find his antique doll. Perhaps Mrs. De Keyser can be of some help, too. She might have noticed something peculiar.”
All this time, as the entire Belden family was trying to calm Trixie, Bobby Belden had been sitting silently in his chair, looking glummer and glummer. While Trixie described how Mr. Reid had threatened to have the two of them locked up, Bobby slid so far down in his chair that only the top of his curly mop of hair could be seen. And finally, when he could bear it no longer, great gulping sobs were heard coming from the vicinity of his seat. But Bobby wasn’t in it.
“Bobby!” Trixie said, when she heard the sobs. “What’s the matter, honey? Where are you anyway?”
Bobby was finally located under the table. “He probably got scared when he heard you were going to jail,” Mart teased. But this remark only made Bobby cry harder.
After a great deal of coaxing, he was finally convinced to explain what was bothering him.
“Oh, Trixie,” he sobbed, burying his head in her lap. “I don’t want to go to jail! Please don’t let them send me, Trixie. I didn’t mean it, honest!”
“Didn’t mean what, Bobby?” Trixie asked, completely confused.
Trixie lifted the tear-streaked little face, and looked into Bobby’s eyes. “The doll is in your room?”
“Yeessss!” came the loud and miserable response. “A little doggie came over yesterday while I was playing in the yard. It was the little doggie that took the doll, but he gave her to me. I didn’t know. Honest, Trixie. I didn’t know!”
Trixie suddenly burst out laughing.
“Willy!” she shrieked. “Of course! It was Willy!”
On further questioning, Bobby described the dog, and Trixie was able to figure out what happened. But first, she excused herself from the table and ran up to Bobby’s room. There was the doll, sitting up in the corner of his closet, surrounded by a collection of old bottlecaps, spiders’ eggs, pine-cones, and rusty garden tools.
As soon as dinner was over, Trixie immediately called Honey and told her to come over right away. In a matter of minutes, a pale, panting Honey came bursting in the front door, and together they gazed at the antique doll.
“It’s her all right,” Trixie said. “Would you believe it? That sneaky Willy ran into The Antique Barn and snitched her, just the way he snitched the feather duster and the bag of carrots.”
“And you know how Willy loves kids,” Honey said. “He was probably delighted that he had something to give Bobby as a present.”
“She looks as if he dragged her through every bramble patch between Mrs. De Keyser’s house and Crabapple Farm, though,” Trixie said. “I’m afraid she’s in terrible shape. Maybe we’d better wash her dress before we give her back. Mr. Reid will be furious if he sees her looking like this!”
“Good idea, Trixie,” Honey said. “But let’s hurry. Maybe if we wash the dress right now, it will be ready by tomorrow afternoon.”
Trixie picked up the doll and quickly undid the snaps at the back of her dress. Slipping the doll’s china arms out of the sleeves, she eased the dress down over the yellowed lace petticoats that were underneath.
Suddenly there was a loud clatter on the floor, and a muffled yelp of pain.
“Ouch!” Trixie said, dropping the dress in surprise. “Something heavy just fell on my foot!”
She bent down to investigate, and came up holding a flat rectangular object. It was made of heavy metal.
“Where did that come from?” she muttered in irritation. But Honey already had the answer.
“I know,” she said, holding up the little gown Trixie had dropped. “Take a look. It fell out of this dress, and there’s another one in here, too.”
Trixie took the dress from Honey. Sure enough, two hidden pockets were sewn in the underside of the satin gown—and still inside one of them was another metal plate.
“So that’s why the doll was so heavy,” Trixie reasoned. “I wonder what these metal plates are for?”
As Trixie and Honey began to examine them, Brian happened to walk past.
“Brian,” Trixie called from Bobby’s room. “Come and take a look at this.”
She handed Brian one of the mysterious pieces of metal and watched as he held it up close, then turned it over and over in his hands.
“This looks like an engraving for a twenty-dollar bill,” he said.
“Oh, sure,” Trixie said sarcastically. But her heart began to pound.
Honey smiled uneasily, but Brian was still frowning at the plate.
“What does the other one look like?” he asked.
Trixie picked up the other plate, and was about to give it to her brother. But instead she carried it over to the bright light of the lamp where she could scrutinize it carefully.
“I think this one’s a twenty-dollar bill, too—but it looks slightly different. Hand me the other one, will you?”
Examining the two of them together, she suddenly had a feeling that these plates were far more important than any of them realized. She carried them over to the mirror. Holding both of them up so they were reflected in the mirror, she gasped in horror at the unassailable conclusion.
“Brian!” she said. “These are counterfeiting plates!”
“Let me see.”
“You see what I mean? These are backwards,” she said. “Look in the mirror.”
Brian and Honey looked at the reflection of the two plates in the mirror.
“See?” Trixie repeated. “A printing plate is the reverse of the image which ends up on the paper. This one is the front of a twenty-dollar bill, and this is the back. That could mean only one thing.”
“What?” asked Mart as he came into the room. “Is the schoolgirl shamus about to make a stupendous pronouncement? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t want to miss this one for the world!” Plunking himself down in a chair, he leaned forward eagerly. “Well?” Trixie was so engrossed in her thoughts she didn’t pay any attention to his teasing.
“That’s right,” she said. “Only one thing —Carl Reid is a counterfeiter! He’s going to use these plates to make phony twenty-dollar bills!”
There was a leaden silence in the room. Finally Brian spoke.
“Trixie,” he said quietly, “I think you’re right. But this time I’m afraid you’ve really bitten off more than you can chew.”
“I know,” Trixie said. “What do we do next?”
“I don’t understand,” Honey said. “Why has she bitten off more than she can chew?”
“Simple,” answered Trixie. “You see, Carl Reid wants his doll back because of these plates. It’s not a valuable doll, at least not to him. It’s what’s in the dress that’s valuable to him—these plates. If we return the doll without the plates, he’ll know we’ve discovered his secret.”
“And if you return the doll with the plates,” Mart said, “he might be able to tell that you’ve tampered with it, found the plates, and then he might want to—”
“Don’t say it!” Honey said loudly.
“Just a minute,” Brian said. “We have to think this thing through carefully. The possibility always exists that he doesn’t know about the plates. He could want the doll because he’s interested in antique toys. Perhaps someone else is using him to transport these things into the country.”
Trixie quickly picked up on Brian’s train of thought.
“You mean someone who knows about the plates, and the fact that they’re inside the doll’s dress, would then come to his shop and buy the doll?”
“That’s one possibility,” said Mart. “Or perhaps someone intends to steal it from him.”
“Oh no,” Honey cried. “At this very moment, some awful criminal might be watching us! We could all be in terrible danger. Shouldn’t we tell the police?”
“That’s the worst thing we could do right now,” Trixie said. “No matter who the actual counterfeiter is, the finger of suspicion points straight at us!”
“But we didn’t do anything,” Mart said. “Therefore we have nothing to worry about.”
“Not so, I’m afraid,” Brian answered sadly. “Brian’s right,” Trixie said. “Counterfeiting is a federal crime, and it carries very high penalties. And counterfeiters stand to make a lot of money. I suspect that they’re not very nice if they think someone has gotten in their way.”
“Or might turn them in,” Brian added. “Well, what can we do?” Honey asked. “It looks as if we’re in trouble if we return the doll, and we’re in trouble if we don’t.”
“I’ll think of something,” Trixie said. “But before we do anything, let’s try and get this dress tidied up. If it looks neat and clean, we might be able to get away with pretending we don’t know anything.”
The girls went into the bathroom and washed out the little gown. Then they hung it carefully to dry in Trixie’s room.
“Tomorrow we can iron it,” Trixie said as Honey was leaving. “Maybe he won’t be able to tell that anything happened to the doll. And perhaps by then I will have figured out what to do.”
“I certainly hope so,” sa
id Honey. She shivered slightly as she stepped out onto the porch. “Think hard, okay?”
“Don’t I always?” Trixie said. “Don’t worry.”
“That’s all very nice to say, Trixie Belden,” Honey said. “You’re usually the biggest worrier of all.” She walked quickly down the steps. “Maybe this time Brian is right. Maybe we did bite off more than we can chew.”
“Oh my goodness,” Trixie exclaimed suddenly. “I almost forgot! There’s a meeting of the newspaper staff tomorrow after school. That’s really going to mess everything up. Now we have to ask Moms to pick us up. We’ll miss the school bus because of the meeting.”
“Why don’t we take our bikes tomorrow?” Honey suggested. “That way, we’ll have them after school and we won’t have to bother your mother.”
“Okay,” Trixie said. “I’ll meet you at the end of the driveway tomorrow morning.”
“Great,” Honey said. She turned to go. “See you tomorrow, then—and keep thinking hard!”
“Right,” Trixie said. “See you.”
Honey quickly made her way along the path between the two houses, and Trixie went upstairs to her room. The doll’s dress hanging in the corner sent a quiver of apprehension dancing down her spine.
10 * Caught!
THE NEWSPAPER staff meeting after school the next day lasted so long Trixie thought she would sprout grey hairs if they didn’t hurry up and get it over with. Under ordinary circumstances, Trixie liked the staff meetings, but today she had so many things on her mind she just couldn’t keep her attention on any of it.
“Holy cow!” she said, as they finally ran down the stairs and found their bicycles in the lockup by the side door of the building. “You’d think they had nothing better to do than talk about how much money Mrs. Doherty in the knitting shop plans to make this season!”
“That is the assignment, you know,” Honey said. “What else should they talk about—the price of tea in Istanbul?”
Trixie burst out laughing.
“I do declare, Miz Wheeler,” she teased, affecting a southern accent. “Y’all sound just like my brother Mart.”
The Mystery of the Antique Doll Page 7
