In a minute both men were sprawling on the barn floor and clouds of dust floated up to the loft as they struggled and fought. They made so much noise thrashing about and cursing hoarsely that Trixie and Honey felt perfectly safe in creeping to the edge of the loft to get a better view of the battle. At last there could be no doubt that Al, the stronger of the two, was going to win. While the girls watched, fascinated, almost sorry for Jeff, he suddenly went limp with exhaustion.
In another moment Al was securely trussing him up with rope, muttering all the while, “This will hold you, my fine jailbird! I never had any intention of giving you a share of the loot. But now it’s yours, all yours.” He ripped a strip from a burlap bag and crammed it into the unconscious Jeff’s open mouth.
The clouds of dust created by the struggle made the air in the loft almost unbearable. If I can’t cough or clear my throat soon, Trixie thought in an agony of suspense, I’ll choke to death.
And then Honey sneezed. Frozen with fright to the edge of the loft, the girls stared downward as Al’s bushy-haired head fell back and his fox-like face turned up to meet their terrified gaze.
Chapter 13
A Dire Threat
If it hadn’t been such a tense moment, Trixie knew she would have burst into hysterical laughter for the expression on Al’s face proved that he was as startled as though Honey’s suppressed sneeze had been an atom bomb explosion. For one long minute he stared up at them, mouth gaping, and then a crafty look crept into his narrow eyes.
“So it’s the rich little girls in the silver trailer,” he said, quietly moving toward the rickety ladder. “Snooping again, eh? Well, well, well, we’ll have to correct that bad habit. Nice young ladies don’t snoop. I could use some ransom money to pay for my expensive trip.” He placed one heavy foot on the first rung. “That governess of yours won’t argue when I tell her to leave a fat roll of unmarked bills under a stone at the Autoville entrance tonight. She won’t notify the police either.” He reached up a grimy hand and touched one of Honey’s shoulder-length curls. “Not when I send her a lock of your pretty hair with the note, eh?”
Honey shrank back as though she had been slapped and Trixie thought wildly, This is all my fault! I should never have exposed Honey to the danger of kidnaping. I should have come here alone. He wouldn’t bother with me, I’m too poor.
Out of the corner of one eye she saw that Honey was sick with terror, on the verge of fainting. All her life she had grown up with the fear of being kidnaped, and now it was happening. The sight of Honey’s white, stricken face did something to Trixie. She sat up abruptly and, dangling her legs over the edge of the loft as though she were not the least bit frightened, said coolly, “If I were you, Mister Al, I’d get on that plane you were telling Jeff about just as soon as you can. I happen to know the state troopers are on their way over here right now.”
Al chuckled and took another step up the ladder. “I always said you were smart,” he told her. “Jeff kept saying you were nothing but a dumb little girl, but I knew better. You found our first hideaway, didn’t you? But you’re not smart enough to trick me into passing up a nice chunk of ransom money. If the state troopers knew about this hideaway, they would have been here long ago.”
Trixie swung her legs nonchalantly. “Don’t be too sure of that. That redheaded boy who let the air out of your tire is one of our best friends, and he’s not dumb either. State troopers are like you and Jeff in one respect. They think kids are always playing cops and robbers.” She leaned forward slightly. “Unless they have absolute proof that it’s not a game. I should think,” she finished airily, “that Jim has had just about enough time to lead them to your van and the stolen trailer. They must be on their way here now.”
Fear flickered in Al’s close-set eyes, but he moved up another rung. “Jim,” he muttered sarcastically. “You made up that name. You never heard of that redheaded boy until an hour ago.”
“Is that so?” Trixie fluffed up her short sandy hair. “In case you happened to glance at his christening mug, I can tell you the exact words inscribed upon it.” She placed her hands upon her hips and swayed back and forth chanting, “James Winthrop Frayne the second. Right?”
She was so right that Al almost fell off the ladder, and Trixie chose that exact moment to help him on his way down. Raising both feet she kicked him on the chest with all her might. Caught off guard, he lurched backward, clutched madly at the top rung of the rickety ladder, and, still clutching the broken rung, toppled down to the floor below.
He lay there stunned for a second while Trixie wondered what she should do next to keep him from kidnaping Honey. Then he scrambled to his feet and shook the piece of splintered wood up at her.
“You’re all part of a teen-age gang,” he howled hysterically. “You and your friend and that redheaded kid and your so-called governess. Bet you stole that silver trailer and the red one too. Cutting in on my racket!”
Trixie felt too hysterical herself at this accusation to reply, and at that moment Honey came to the rescue. Trixie stared at her in amazement as Honey yelled down, “That’s right. We stole the Swan and the Robin too. This is our territory, see? Scram out of it, big boy, or you’ll get hurt.”
Laughter at the sight of gentle, slender-faced Honey playing a hard-boiled part bubbled up in Trixie’s throat, but she managed to hold it back. And now Al was slowly coming to his senses, realizing how ridiculous his accusation had been.
“Come on down, you two,” he commanded gruffly. “I don’t want to get rough but I’ll count to ten. If you’re not out of that loft by then I’ll come and drag you down.”
Trixie dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands. If only Jim could somehow have notified the troopers without risk to himself! She knew he had done the best he could, and as Honey had said, there was only a small chance that they might have found the stolen trailer and the van by now.
“—six, seven, eight—”
Trixie stood up hopelessly and helped Honey to her feet. “We’ve got to give in,” she sighed. “He’ll only hurt us if we don’t.”
“You bet I will,” Al growled.
And then another man’s voice cut in, “Put your hands up over your head and keep ’em that way!”
Trixie had just started climbing backward down the ladder, and the sudden command startled her so that she almost lost her balance. She twisted around in amazement and there in the entrance of the old barn stood two state troopers, guns leveled in their right hands.
“Reach for the ceiling, brother,” one of them repeated as Al, still facing the ladder, stood frozen to the spot. Slowly Al’s hands went up. “See if he’s got a gun, Dave,” the trooper said, “while I find out if the other one’s still breathing.”
He strode over to Jeff and took the gag out of his mouth while Dave patted Al’s pockets. Jeff groaned as Trixie and Honey clambered swiftly down the ladder.
The troopers paid no attention to them, and Trixie couldn’t think of a word to say. She felt as though she had been watching a moving picture and had suddenly become a very real part of it.
Dave produced a pair of handcuffs and said to Al, “Put your dainty wrists in these bracelets, bud. Pretty, aren’t they?” He grinned at the other trooper. “Nice of him to tie up his friend for us, huh, Bill?”
Bill cut the rope around Jeff’s ankles and motioned to him to get up. “One of them must have ratted on the other,” he said thoughtfully. “Which one of you tipped us off that the trailer loot was in this old barn?”
Jeff and Al glared at each other suspiciously but said nothing.
“The way I figure it,” Bill went on, “is that the big guy there was fixing to double-cross his friend. He knows he could never get out of the state with this stuff, but his pal puts up an argument, so he decides to frame him and gives us the tip about the hideaway.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Bill,” Dave objected. “Why was he hanging around here waiting for us?”
“Well, then,” Bill
demanded impatiently, “who did telephone headquarters about half an hour ago? Any law-abiding citizen would have given us his name instead of hanging up on us.” His eyes fell on the two girls then and he seemed to see them for the first time. “Say, what is this anyway, a quilting bee? What are you kids doing around here?”
Trixie thought quickly. If I’m not careful they’ll ask me about Jim, she decided. Aloud she explained, “We came in here to get out of the rain and then that bushy-haired man tried to kidnap us.”
The trooper stared at her suspiciously. “Was it one of you, by any chance, who reported to headquarters that if we looked in the woods north of the river road we’d find a stolen trailer hitched to a van with a flat tire?”
Both girls shook their heads vigorously.
“And at the same time,” the trooper went on relentlessly, “did you suggest that a search of the abandoned barn below the orchard on the Smith truck farm might reveal the trailer gang’s hideaway?”
“No, sir,” Trixie and Honey said together.
“Well, I’d like to know who did,” Bill exploded. “What was that you said about kidnaping?”
Trixie bit her lip. Now they were in for a lot more questions and sooner or later they would lead to the subject of a redheaded boy.
While she hesitated, Al innocently came to the rescue. “She was letting her imagination run away with her,” he said shrewdly. “I’d rather kidnap a dozen wildcats barehanded than one of those two girls. The short one kicked me in the stomach and knocked me off the ladder.”
Both the troopers howled with laughter, and in a moment Honey and Trixie joined in.
“You kids run along home now,” Bill said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this mystery at headquarters. Since we caught these two birds redhanded, we won’t need to call you in as witnesses.”
Trixie and Honey hurried out of the barn, relieved to avoid further questioning. It had stopped raining and as soon as it was safe to talk, Trixie said, “Why, it’s not late at all. It seemed to me that we were hiding up in that loft for hours, but actually it was only a few minutes, I guess.”
Honey nodded. “Let’s go back to the trailer and see how Miss Trask is. Then we can explore the woods on the other side of the road.”
As they trudged through the muddy fields, Trixie said, “I just can’t get over those troopers arriving in the nick of time. Jim must have notified them after all.”
“I was sure he’d do it, somehow,” Honey said.
“Well, I wasn’t,” Trixie said. “When that awful Al climbed up the ladder, I was scared to death we’d both end up in that oat bin with Jeff.”
“Scared?” Honey looked at her incredulously. “I almost fainted but you acted as though you were having the time of your life.”
Trixie grinned. “I was shaking so I had to swing my legs so he couldn’t see how my knees were knocking together. Then I thought it would be funny to swing my legs in his direction. It never occurred to me that I could knock him down off the ladder.”
“You really should get the credit for catching those thieves,” Honey said admiringly. “If you hadn’t kept Al there talking he might have got away.”
“You did all right yourself.” Trixie grinned. “I thought I would die when you tried to act like a gangster.”
“Well, that’s one thing off our list.” Honey sighed. “Thank goodness we don’t have to look for a van or an old barn any more. Now if we could just find Jim and Joeanne, and if only the troopers would find the Robin abandoned somewhere in the woods, all our troubles would be over.”
“Cheer up,” Trixie said. “We know Jim’s not far away, and I’ll bet we find his hiding place this very afternoon.”
“Why, what do you mean?” Honey demanded. “We found his hiding place. The loft in the old barn.”
Trixie shook her head. “He may have hidden there one night, but he won’t come back. That barn will be sealed as tight as a drum in a few minutes. All that stolen stuff is important evidence. Anyway, I keep having a feeling Jim is camping out in the woods somewhere.”
Impatient to start searching, she raced ahead of Honey through the trailer park and yanked open the Swan door. Miss Trask was calmly reading a book and did not look as though she had worried about them at all.
“What luck?” she asked with a smile. “I guessed that you got caught in the rain and had to stay at Rushkill Farms until it was over. No word of Jim?”
“No,” Trixie said and was surprised to see by the clock on the radio that it was only two-thirty. “We want to explore the woods some more. Can we do anything for you before we go?”
“I’m very comfortable, thanks,” Miss Trask told her. “And my hand hardly hurts at all. I’m sure I can drive by day after tomorrow. I’m sorry Jim wasn’t at any of the camps. Perhaps we ought to put through a long-distance call tonight to Mr. Rainsford. I think he should put private detectives on the case right away.”
Honey, who had joined Trixie at the Swan entrance, pleaded, “Oh, no, let’s wait one more day. If we haven’t found Jim by tomorrow night we can call Mr. Rainsford.”
“Very well,” her governess agreed. “Run along then and have fun.”
The girls hurried down the Autoville driveway to the main road.
“We saw those blue jeans about half a mile from here,” Trixie said. “For some reason that trail to Pine Hollow Camp isn’t shown on the map. The one we took from the academy wound all around the countryside.”
“All bridle trails do that,” Honey replied. “The idea is to get a lot of riding in, not to travel along the shortest distance between two points.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Trixie said. “We’ve had a lot of fun, but now we can’t waste any more time.”
They trudged along in silence until they came to the spot where the tracks had ended at the macadam road.
“Why this isn’t a bridle path at all,” Honey gasped. “It’s a back road leading to Pine Hollow Camp.”
“I remember now,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “We said at the time that nobody could have ridden a bike along the other trail. No wonder this road doesn’t show on the map. It’s probably only used by trucks bringing supplies to the camp. As a matter of fact, it’s a private delivery driveway, I guess.”
“That’s the answer,” Honey agreed as they started up the rutted road. “Shall we cut through the woods or try to find a path?”
“Let’s go around the bend and see if—” Trixie stopped as she caught a glimpse of the road beyond the bend. “Why, there’s a car parked up ahead of us. Do you hear the motor running?”
“Uh-huh,” Honey panted as she hurried behind Trixie. “It’s gasping and choking as though it’s almost out of gas.”
Trixie rounded the bend first. “It’s a sedan,” she cried. “And all the windows are tightly shut. Who would close up his car and go off leaving the motor running?”
“Oh, Trixie,” Honey gasped. “There’s a man in there, slumped over the wheel!”
And then Trixie remembered something she had forgotten in the exciting events at the old barn. Something Jeff had said accusingly to Al, “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.”
Trixie was already tugging at one of the sedan’s door handles, shouting directions to Honey. “Quick! Open up the other side. Break the glass with a stone if the door’s locked. This is the man who owns the last trailer Jeff and Al stole!”
Chapter 14
Hair Ribbons and Pigtails
Trixie yanked open the door of the car and reached in to turn off the ignition. Frantically she tried to remember everything she knew about gas poisoning. If the victim had stopped breathing, she knew artificial respiration must be started at once. But how could she and Honey drag this unconscious man out from behind the wheel?
How long had he been shut up in that closed car with the motor running? Since noon? No, Al had said he only wanted the m
an to stay asleep until they could move the van to the barn. So he must have turned on the ignition and closed the car doors after they discovered the flat tire. How much deadly carbon monoxide had seeped up through the floor boards since then?
Trixie hesitated, and Honey, from the other side of the car, whispered, “Can you see his face, Trixie? Is it blue? Is he breathing?”
Just then the man raised his head a little and uttered a faint sigh. He looked pale and ill but in another moment he was sitting upright, staring dizzily around him and rubbing the back of his head. Gradually his color came back as fresh air circulated through the car. He looked at Trixie and then at Honey and managed a weak smile. “What happened? Where am I?”
“You’re on a side road not far from Autoville,” Trixie told him. “And thank goodness you’re still alive. A perfectly awful man hit you on the head and stole your trailer. Then he came back and shut you up in the car with the motor running so you’d stay unconscious.”
The man stared at her in amazement. “I remember now,” he said after thinking for a minute. “I picked up a hitchhiker who said he knew a short cut to the trailer camp. I thought at the time that this road went in the wrong direction, but that’s the last thing I remember.”
“You were lucky,” Honey put in. “I guess not very much of the exhaust gas leaked into the car. If it had, we might not have discovered you in time.”
The man grinned, still dazed. “I don’t know exactly what happened yet, but I seem to owe you thanks for saving my life. My name is Currier. I’m a trailer salesman. I was delivering one to a Mr. Whitsun who was to meet me for lunch at Autoville.” He glanced at his wrist watch. “Good heavens, it’s nearly three. He’ll be furious, and I may lose my job.” He turned on the ignition. The motor caught, then sputtered and died.
The Red Trailer Mystery Page 12
