And then the rain began to come down again in torrents. Honey clutched Trixie’s arm. “I’m scared,” she whispered. “We’ll get soaked if we stand here, but I wouldn’t go inside that old barn for anything!”
“Wait a minute,” Trixie whispered back. “I’ll bet that old thing hasn’t even got a door. I’ll creep around and see if I can get a view of the front.”
She crawled off through the trees, slipping and sloshing in the mud and in a couple of minutes she caught a glimpse of the entrance to the barn. One door had fallen off completely and the other hung precariously from a rusty hinge. There was no sign of the van or the men, but from this spot Trixie could plainly see heavy tire marks in the old road that led up from the hollow to the sloping orchard.
“Come on,” she shouted to Honey. “The coast’s clear,” and raced for shelter.
Once inside, the girls stared around them in amazement. It was as though they had walked from the rainy outdoors into a storage warehouse. There were three almost new refrigerators with matching electric stoves, two radios, a portable Victrola, vacuum cleaners, lamps, mattresses and springs, pressure cookers, and all sorts of expensive-looking electrical appliances.
“Whew!” Trixie shouted. “There must be thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff stacked around here.”
Honey clapped her hand over Trixie’s mouth. “Hush,” she whispered. “Someone’s coming! Can’t you hear footsteps sloshing through the mud?”
Trixie listened and then grabbed Honey’s arm. “Quick! Up in the loft.” She started for the rickety ladder but Honey hung back.
“It’ll never hold our weight,” she gasped. “It’ll collapse and we’ll both be killed.”
Desperate, Trixie gave her a little shake. “Whoever is coming is bound to be either Jeff or his foxy pal,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’d rather risk the loft than be caught by either one of them.”
Numb with fright, Honey began to climb with Trixie right behind her. They reached the top and crawled under the eaves just as the sound of men’s voices came to them through the drumming of the rain on the ancient roof.
“—but what about that redheaded kid?” someone was asking. “Suppose he rats on us, Al?”
Cautiously Trixie bent forward and peered through a crack in the wide floor boards. Jeff and his bushy-haired friend were standing just inside the entrance.
The man called Al shrugged. “That kid doesn’t worry me one little bit.”
“I don’t get it,” Jeff whined. “Two dumb little girls scare you away from a swell hiding place right off the road, but you let that redheaded punk—”
“Oh, shut up,” Al interrupted gruffly. “That kid isn’t going to rat on anybody, see? Now, get the jack you so cleverly left in here. The van’s not doing us any good sitting on the side of the road with a flat tire.”
“I’m going to take a look up in that loft first,” Jeff argued. “If he’s hiding there, I’d like to have a few words with him.”
Trixie didn’t dare look at Honey. She held her breath and closed her eyes, listening with horror to the heavy footsteps on the floor below.
Chapter 12
A Fateful Sneeze
Trixie’s fists were clenched into tight little white-knuckled knots as she waited tensely for Jeff to climb up the ladder to the loft.
And then Al’s voice snarled. “You thickheaded numbskull! That kid’s not in the loft. And if he is, so what? He’s no more friendly with the troopers than we are. Pick up that jack and get going. Do you want someone to take a look inside of that van while you play hide-and-seek with a boy who’s a fugitive from reform school?”
The heavy footsteps stopped, and Trixie opened her eyes. She peered down through the crack again.
The two men were glowering at each other. Jeff was not whining and cringing now although Al, a big, heavy-shouldered man, looked as though he were going to knock him down any minute. “You’d better watch who you call a numbskull around here,” Jeff said evenly. “And in case you’re interested, I’m getting fed up with your giving all the orders. This is a fifty-fifty racket, see?”
A sneer twisted Al’s sharp features. “Fifty-fifty! That’s what you think! I’m the brains of this outfit and I thought up the idea. I’ve also taken most of the risk. You’re lucky I’m going to give you a third just to keep that big mouth of yours shut.”
Dull red spots mottled Jeff’s high cheekbones. “Why, you—” he sputtered. “You double-crossing rat! I’ve taken the big risk all along. Who forged those references so we could get jobs at the trailer camp? Do you think they’d have given you that classy uniform without those big-shot signatures I copied on the letters of recommendation?”
“That’s just the point,” Al said coolly. “You have a prison record; I haven’t. All I have to do to get rid of you is to drop a small hint to the Autoville manager that it might be a good idea to have your fingerprints checked.”
Jeff laughed. “You wouldn’t dare. I’d sing a little song that would land you in stir so quick you’d never know what hit you.” His expression slowly changed to one of deep suspicion. “So, you’ve been double-crossing me all along, huh? It was you who nabbed that red trailer all the radio ballyhoo is about. Got it hidden somewhere so you can make a quick getaway with all the loot sometime when I’m back there sweating in the kitchen.” He took a threatening step toward the bushy-haired man. “Painted it a nice shiny blue by now, eh, with new license plates? All set to go, leaving me to take the rap when the cops close in and things get too hot, huh?”
“Don’t be a complete fool,” Al hissed. “Whoever stole the Robin ruined us and you know it! Since that happened there are more state troopers on the road than there are cars. As long as the other trailers were found right away, nobody kicked too much. Their owners were all heavily insured, so as long as they got their little traveling homes back, they were satisfied. But the amateur who made off with the Robin hasn’t got brains enough to abandon the thing and give the troopers a rest.” He whistled through his teeth in exasperation. “The sooner they catch that guy the better.”
Trixie could tell from the frown on Jeff’s ugly face that he still suspected Al. “No amateur swiped that red trailer,” he growled. “Only a smart guy like you could pull one like that without being picked up before he changed into high gear.”
Al reached into his pocket and produced a cigarette. He tapped it on his thumbnail and stuck it in one corner of his mouth without lighting it. Then he said, hardly moving his lips, “I’ve stood enough of your yap. As soon as you’ve changed that tire, we’ll load up the van and I’ll get going for the coast. I’ll send you your share when I’ve sold the stuff. Or if you don’t trust me, I’ll give you a grand now and call it quits.”
“A grand!” Jeff chuckled evilly. “Big boy, it’ll cost you exactly five thousand dollars to get that tire changed.”
For the first time since they had scrambled in fright to the old hayloft, Trixie stole a quick look at Honey. She was lying flat on the floor, peering intently through another crack. She didn’t look the least bit frightened now; in fact it was obvious that she was thoroughly enjoying herself, as though she were safe in a theater watching an exciting moving picture.
Trixie smiled inwardly. Slowly but surely Honey was conquering her fear and timidity. When the girls had first met, Trixie had thought Honey was a sissy, but during the adventures connected with the old mansion, Honey had proved over and over again that she was anything but that.
She’s a swell sport, Trixie thought, proud of her friend. A couple of weeks ago she would have fainted dead away without even trying to climb up that rickety ladder. And then she thought about Miss Trask. It was growing late. How long would the men stay down there arguing?
“You’ll change that tire for nothing,” Al was saying tensely. “If you don’t, I’ll beat you so your own mother will never recognize you.” He clenched one big fist. “We’ve wasted too much time already. That guy may come to any minute. The van’s park
ed too close to his car to be healthy,” he finished. “Whatever made you leave the jack in the barn?”
Jeff moved backward, cringing a little. “I didn’t. Honest, Al. It was that redheaded kid, I tell you. If you’d only listened to me none of this would have happened. He took the jack out of the van and he loosened the valve core on that tire so we’d have a nice slow leak. Why didn’t you let me tie him up and gag him when we found him asleep up in the loft last night?”
“Sure, sure,” Al jeered, lighting a match to his cigarette finally. But he had lost some of his poise, for Trixie could see that his hand was shaking. “You tie him up and gag him and then what? He smothers to death and we have a nice little murder on our hands.”
Jeff had apparently noticed Al’s growing nervousness for he said quickly, “What about the guy you slugged and left in a closed car with the motor running? When he gets a lungful of carbon monoxide, he ain’t going to be too healthy.”
Al carelessly blew a series of smoke rings. “Ah, somebody’ll find him before enough gas seeps up through the floor boards. I just want him to sleep nice and quietly until we can get the van down here. So will you please pick up that jack and get going?”
“What jack?” Jeff demanded sourly. “If you see one lying around you’ve got better eyes than I have. I tell you, that redheaded punk—”
Al lost control of himself then. “Stop yapping about that kid! It’s getting on my nerves. He runs away from state reform school and stumbles on this old wreck. Sees a lot of trailer equipment lying around, but does that mean anything to him? How could it, blockhead? Unless he ran away with a walkie-talkie he doesn’t know about our racket or that a red trailer is missing. Sure he sees the van, but what of it? This old barn isn’t pretty but it’s got a stone foundation and a good roof. Why doesn’t the kid figure this is a legitimate moving and storage business we’re in? That’s what it says on the van. We charge cheap rates because we wait till we get a van full, then deliver the items all at once instead of making a lot of expensive trips up and down the river.” He threw away his cigarette and ground it savagely under his heel. “I don’t know why I tell you the spiel all over again. Thought you memorized it once so you’d know what to say if anyone stopped you on the road.”
“You’re the one who’s wasting time now,” Jeff said sarcastically. “You’re the brains of the outfit and yet you let that kid get away after he hid up there last night listening to every word we said before we discovered him.”
Al’s narrow, too-close-together eyes glanced up at the loft, and Trixie’s heart missed a beat. “He was sound asleep,” he said, but he didn’t sound sure of himself any more. “I can tell whether a kid’s playing possum or not. And even if he did hear what we said, he’s not going to run to the troopers. They’d clap him back in reform school before he began to sing.”
“Reform school!” Jeff laughed hollowly. “If you’d ever spent any time in one of them places, you’d know better. Asleep or awake, whatever he was when we saw him stretched out up there, he ain’t got the look. And punks who run away from the law don’t carry silver cups and big heavy Bibles with them.”
Trixie and Honey stared at each other. Honey formed the word, “Jim,” with her lips and Trixie nodded. And then she saw not three feet from her face two impressions in the dust. One was oblong as though a heavy book had been placed there recently, and the christening mug would have fit exactly into the circular one beside it.
She pointed excitedly to the impressions, but Honey, grabbing her arm, was pointing in another direction. And Trixie saw with a thrill of pride that someone had tossed the missing jack into one of the empty stalls before which Al was standing. That someone had to be Jim!
Trixie felt like laughing and crying at once. Only the night before Jim had hidden in this very loft listening to the plans of two trailer thieves! He had not only managed to fool them by pretending to be sound asleep when they finally discovered him, but early that morning he must have taken the jack from the van and not long ago come back to loosen one of the tire valves so that the men’s scheme would be ruined by a flat tire!
He really is the most wonderful boy in the world, she decided silently. And the best part of it is that he can’t be too far away now!
The men were arguing in loud voices, and Trixie peered through the crack again.
“I can give you the story of that redheaded kid,” Jeff was shouting. “He lives up there in that big white farmhouse. His old man gave him a licking on account of he played hooky from Sunday school. So he runs away and hides in this barn. A couple of nights away from home and he’s had enough. So he goes back, but first he starts a nice slow leak on us and swipes our jack just for the heck of it. I can tell a farm boy when I see one.”
Al’s face turned pale. “He did look husky,” he admitted slowly. “And unless he lives around here, how would he have known about this barn? It was only sheer luck that I saw it myself when I was covering the top of the van with branches so it wouldn’t be noticed from the road.”
“That’s what I keep trying to tell you,” Jeff bellowed triumphantly.
“You fool!” Al hissed. “If you were smart enough to figure all that out why didn’t you tell me before we got stuck in the woods right off the main highway two miles from a trailer we’d just dismantled?”
“You didn’t give me a chance,” Jeff snarled. “I wanted to tie him and gag him last night, remember? But I didn’t think he’d pull no trick on us right away. I figure like you, maybe he doesn’t guess we’re not in a legit racket. I don’t remember just what he heard us say last night.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I ain’t too worried about the kid myself until we get that flat, and I open the van door and find the jack missing.”
Suddenly Al, losing control of himself completely, hit him. Jeff staggered backward from the blow on his chin, and Al slapped him hard across one cheek. “You numbskull,” he screamed. “I can tell you what he heard us say last night. He heard us say the hullabaloo over that missing red trailer was ruining our racket. People aren’t careless any more. They don’t park on side roads with their keys in the tow car and go off for a nice long swim. So we have to think of something else or quit. We decide to try the old hitchhiker gag. You heard the manager back at the cafeteria talking about a reservation for a salesman who’s due to deliver a big luxury trailer to Autoville around noon. So I wait farther up the highway and thumb a ride from the driver. I show him a short cut and when we turn into the side road I tap him lightly on the head. Then you drive up alongside and we hitch the trailer to the van. We leave the man in the tow car on the side road and we take the trailer into the woods.”
Al’s voice had risen to an outraged bellow. “That’s what the redheaded kid heard us say! Why didn’t you tell me he looked like a farm kid? Don’t you see, blockhead, he stole the jack this morning, then he came back a little while ago and fixed that tire so we’d frame ourselves nicely. The air leaked out just enough so we could hitch ourselves to the trailer and get into the woods a way, but there we are, just as the kid planned it, stuck to the evidence that will land us both in jail.”
Jeff’s face turned white between the red welts on one cheek. “Th-then you m-mean the tr-troopers are on their way here n-now?” he stuttered.
“Of course not,” Al roared. “They would have been waiting for us when we came back for the jack if the kid had notified them. Like you say, the boy did it just for the heck of it, and now he’s having a good laugh. Here we are with all this loot and no means of getting away with it. But the troopers have probably found the van by now, and sooner or later the redhead will lead them to this barn.”
Jeff rubbed his reddened cheek dazedly. “I’m getting away now,” he said slowly. “Loot or no loot.”
“How far do you think you’ll get?” Al sneered. “You with your prison record! If you don’t show up when it’s time for you to go on duty at the cafeteria, the troopers will put two and two together
and get right on your trail. And that’s just what I want them to do, except that I don’t want them to find you until I’ve had a chance to board a plane and fly to the coast. If you take it on the lam now, they’ll pick you up before dark, and then you’d squeal, you rat, and I wouldn’t have a chance.” He laughed and took a menacing step toward Jeff.
Jeff cowered against a stall door. “Wh-what are you going to do?”
“Tie you up and gag you, of course,” Al said quietly. “And then I’ll put you in the big oat bin. Nobody will think of looking in there when the kid gets around to showing the troopers our hide-out. And when they do find you, you won’t have enough breath left to sing.”
Jeff covered his face with his hands and burst into a loud wail that went on and on.
“Honey,” Trixie gasped above the scream. “He’ll smother! That Al is a terrible person. We’ve got to do something to stop him.”
“Sh, sh,” Honey cautioned. “As soon as Al leaves, we’ll open the bin and then go for the troopers. I can’t imagine why Jim didn’t tell them to be here waiting for those thieves when they came back for the jack.”
“I can,” Trixie whispered back. “Jim couldn’t go to the police station without being asked a lot of embarrassing questions about who he was and where he lived. The only thing he could do to stop those men was to fix that tire so the van would get stuck while it was hitched to the stolen trailer.”
“I know,” Honey argued. “But he could have telephoned.”
“How could he?” Trixie demanded. “There aren’t any phones in the woods. You know as well as I do now, Honey, Jim’s hiding somewhere close by. He knew they planned to steal a trailer which was due to arrive at Autoville around noon. He had to time everything perfectly so he stole the jack and then waited until he saw Jeff coming across the fields from Autoville—the same way we came down here. Then he slipped into the barn and loosened the tire valve.”
Honey frowned. “He took an awful chance. If those men hadn’t got to accusing each other, they might have jacked up the van, changed the tire and got back here safely. As a matter of fact, in all this rain, I’ll bet the troopers haven’t discovered that stolen trailer yet. It’s not like Jim to risk letting those men—” She stopped as Jeff, right in the middle of a shriek, suddenly lurched forward and catching Al off guard, tripped him.
The Red Trailer Mystery Page 11
