The Mystery of the Uninvited Ghost

by Campbell, Julie

  “Airport,” Hallie corrected. “I flew.”

  There I go again, jumping to conclusions, Trixie thought. Aloud, she asked, “Didn’t you have to present your baggage ticket?^

  Hallie arched her brows. “Sure, but there was a scramble. I dropped my ticket just as my bag showed up on the baggage turntable. I was afraid that it would whirl right past me and I’d have to wait for it to come around again, so I grabbed the bag, then looked for my ticket. A man said, ‘I saw this claim stub fall. Is it yours?’ I didn’t have time to check and just took it. The man turned and walked away, and so did I.”

  “Hey, whats holding up the parade?” Mart called. Feet thumped up the stairs, and both Mart and Brian skidded to a stop in front of the open door.

  Hallie drawled, “Come on in. I’m decent.”

  “We’ve been hearing about the baggage mix-up,” Brian said. He looked straight at Trixie.

  “So, my voice carries!” Trixie snapped, then flushed and avoided Brian’s eyes. She prodded among some rolled-up socks on the bed. “Do you suppose the binoculars are in this mess?” she asked.

  “Binoculars!” If they’d practiced registering surprise in unison, Brian, Mart, and Hallie couldn’t have done a better job.

  “Where did you get that idea?” Hallie asked.

  “Uh, this is camping stuff,” Trixie mumbled. “I thought that somewhere in this pile there should probably be a pair of binoculars.”

  Mart made a messy but thorough examination of the contents of the suitcase. “Wrong,” he said. “No binoculars.”

  From his tone, Trixie knew he was remembering her outburst in the lane. She was not the only Belden with brains. Mart pretended to be a clown and liked to use outlandishly long words and sentences, but he was an honor roll student. He had good recall.

  “Since I won’t be dressing for dinner, will someone help me repack this bag, please?” Hallie invited.

  “Speaking of dressing,” Trixie said, “did you wear that outfit on the plane, Hallie?”

  Hallie was no giggler. She chuckled and retorted slangily, “Nope. I tried to get away with it, but Mom sent me back to change after my bag was locked. I shoved my cutoffs and topper into my overnight kit so I could change the minute I got here.” She shrugged. “Lucky I did, or else I’d be teetering around in high heels, nylons, and a double-knit suit.” Almost against her will, Trixie chalked up another point they had in common. “I like comfortable clothes, too,” she said. She dropped a pair of red socks and bent to pick them up.

  There on the floor, just at the edge of the hem of Bobby’s bedspread, was a black plastic lid of some sort. When she turned it over on her palm, she discovered the word “Empire” printed in silver on the black surface. She held out her hand to show her find. “What do you suppose this is?” she asked.

  “Looks like a lens guard from a pair of binoculars,” Brian said.

  “I told you—” Trixie began hotly, then forced herself to calm down. After all, Hallie had seemed honestly surprised at the mention of binoculars. And Moms said that she’d been telling Hallie all the news. That meant that Hallie couldn’t have been alone in Trixie’s room, spying down the lane. Then, who...?

  “Bobby!” Trixie shouted. “Come here!”

  Instantly Bobby came through the door, wearing his angel face. Plaintively he said, “You don’t have to yell at me. I’ve been up here a long time. This is my room, and you didn’t even say ‘Come in.’ ” Trixie snatched the lens guard from Brian’s hand and waggled it before Bobby’s face. “Have you seen this before?” she demanded sternly.

  Bobby took the cap and shoved it into a pocket. “Oh, no, you don’t!” Trixie warned. She reached into his pocket and came up with two lens caps. She said severely, “Now! I want to know where you put the binoculars!”

  Bobby looked worried and turned to Brian for support. Trixie and Mart, the almost-twins, often gave him trouble, but Brian could be depended on to listen to his side of a story. Bobby told this tall, dark, quiet brother, “I didn’t steal the—the—”

  “Binoculars?” Brian prompted.

  Bobby nodded. “I just wanted to borrow the nocklers to see if anybody was sitting in the wheelchair.” Around the room, lips formed the word “wheelchair,” but no one made a sound. Brian held up a warning hand to keep Trixie from speaking. “Well?” he asked. “Did you see?”

  “Course not. You drove in front, and I couldn’t.” Mart grinned broadly. “Bobby, are you telling us that there was a wheelchair in our lane and our female shamus didn’t see it?”

  Bobby refused to commit himself. “What’s a shame-us?”

  “Mart’s trying to be funny,” Trixie said impatiently. “It’s a policeman.”

  “Oh.” Bobby thought deeply. “I think we need one, ’cause it’s against the law.”

  The Beldens were used to Bobby’s way of talking in circles. He could not be hurried.

  “What’s against the law?” Trixie asked.

  “Opening other people’s mailboxes.” Bobby turned around and started to leave the room.

  “You come right back here, Bobby Belden!” Trixie commanded.

  Bobby was not to be easily ordered around just because there was a guest in the house. He was his own man. “Well, don’t you want the nocklers? I was just going to get them. They’re under your bed.” And out the door he went.

  Trixie started to follow, but Brian shook his head. With furious speed she began repacking the brown suitcase. At the bottom of the jumble she found a boy’s bathing suit—knitted, knee-length, black and white trunks. The wearer would look like an escaped convict.

  Hallie saw them and reddened. “May I use the telephone?”

  Barely able to control her curiosity, Trixie told her, “The extension is in the hall by the dormer window seat. The phone book has a cretonne cover.”

  “I know my own number.” Hallie’s flat brown cheeks glowed with embarrassment. “I think I’ve solved the mystery of the bag mix-up. I’ll let you know for sure after I’ve talked to Mom. I promised to call her anyway.”

  Hallie’s call to Idaho was brief. She came back to Bobby’s room to find her older Belden cousins sitting on the bed, waiting for her.

  “My bag will be delivered at the airport,” she announced. “There were two bags in our hall—the one Cap brought back from camp and the one I borrowed from Knut because it held more junk than mine. I grabbed the wrong one.”

  Trixie felt like a balloon slowly losing its air. She had been all set to call the airport. Now there was no reason for her to get involved. There was no mystery.

  “I feel like an idiot,” Hallie confessed. “When I remembered dropping my ticket, I suspected the worst. I didn’t even really look at Cap’s grubbies. I do that sometimes—I overlook the obvious.”

  “Me, too,” Trixie said weakly.

  Bobby appeared at the door with the binoculars and a message. “Moms says Trixie will please come set the table, and Mart and Brian can shuck the com ’cause it’s time to cook it.” He waited for Brian to reach the door, then walked tall with the weight of Brian’s arm on his shoulders. “I’ll pull off the com hair you miss,” he promised Brian. That was Bobby’s thank-you for not getting a scolding.

  At Crabapple Farm, the kitchen was the center of the household. The large room was bright with polished maple, braided rugs, and gleaming copper. Treasured china waited on plate racks and cup hooks. All the kitchen niches smelled of good food and held echoes of cheerful voices.

  Mr. Belden came to the porch with two dozen ears of the first garden com. Brian, Mart, and Bobby met him with a dishpan. Trixie and Hallie took their orders from Mrs. Belden, who was queen of her kitchen. Hallie set the table with the china and utensils that Trixie took from racks and drawers. Mr. Belden decided that Bobby would be more useful elsewhere and sent his youngest son in to work with Hallie. Bobby set the milk glasses in place. On the porch, the older boys raced to remove pale green husks while their father checked for brown silk threads still
clinging to milky kernels.

  Mrs. Belden called from the kitchen, “The water’s boiling. Hurry!”

  In rushed the cornhuskers. As fast as Mrs. Belden could rinse the ears in the sink, Brian popped the com into the huge canning kettle. Over his shoulder, he said to Hallie, “Lucky you, to be here for the first corn of the season!”

  “Do you grow com in your garden?” Bobby asked. Hallie whooped. “Are you kidding? I five in a mining town. Our crop is silver.”

  “Wow!” Bobby picked up a shining spoon and stared at his reflection. “This kind?”

  “You betcha,” Hallie said proudly.

  Trixie didn’t talk much while she sliced great red tomatoes. Thinking deeply, she tried to make sense of her violent reaction to Hallie’s arrival. If she’d been working on a case, the days of Hallie’s visit might have seemed less difficult to face. When Trixie was involved in tracking down clues, time always flew.

  With or without company, just keeping her balance during the coming three weeks was going to be almost more than Trixie could manage. For the first time, the Bob-Whites of the Glen were to take part in a wedding. Trixie was to be maid of honor when Jim’s cousin, Juliana Maasden, married Hans Vorwald, a young attorney from Amsterdam.

  Each time she thought of walking down the aisle, Trixie shivered nervously. Hallie couldn’t have chosen a more inconvenient time to visit.

  Trixie moved from one task to the next. She gave Mart the tomatoes to carry to the maple drop-leaf table. She reached for a silver tray and began arranging green onions, cucumbers, lettuce chunks, and tiny carrots. While she rummaged in the refrigerator for the radishes Bobby liked, something clicked in her mind. She popped a radish into her mouth and chewed noisily. “Bobby,” she began, “what did you say about the mailbox?”

  Warily he answered, “I said it’s against the law to open other people’s mailboxes.”

  “What about opening suitcases?” Mart put in slyly. He fished a carrot from Trixie’s tray and got his fingers slapped. She offered him the plastic refrigerator bowl, and he helped himself to a radish.

  Hallie told her worried young cousin, “Never mind, Bobby. I won’t tell the police.”

  “Not that. I mean the part about the wheelchair,” Trixie said.

  “I dunno. Brian drove in front.”

  Brian was draining boiling water from the com.

  Holding his dark head well back from swirling steam, he said, “Now, that doesn’t make sense. If there’d been a wheelchair for me to drive around, I’d have seen it. I drove around your scooter, Bobby.”

  “I didn’t say you drove around it,” Bobby said earnestly. “I said you drove in front and I couldn’t see.”

  “Just where was the wheelchair, Bobby?” Trixie asked.

  Bobby was tired of the conversation. “How do I know? I couldn’t see it with my eyes. Just with the nocklers.”

  Mart wiggled sandy eyebrows at Bobby, then winked at Hallie. “Methinks it’s a figment of the young lad’s fertile imagination. He’s a genius at getting out of a tight situation.”

  Bobby scowled. “I don’t think I like what you sound like I said. Now can we eat, Moms?”

  As she munched on sweet com dripping with butter, Trixie worked on Bobby’s puzzling statements. Once she asked, “Are you sure you saw a wheelchair?”

  Bobby squirmed with impatience while Brian set the holders in the ends of a hot ear of corn. “Sure, I’m sure,” he retorted as he began his third serving.

  Off-Key Whistle ● 3

  HAVING EATEN SO much com that dessert would have to wait until later, the Beldens went about their business. Brian and Bobby took Hallie on a tour of the farm.

  “Okay now, Trixie?” Mr. Belden asked casually. She nodded, and he carried the newspaper to the porch swing. Mrs. Belden joined him.

  When Trixie began to clear the table, Mart offered, “You wash, I’ll wipe.”

  While they worked, Trixie said, “I’m sorry I kicked you.”

  Mart grinned. He was exactly eleven months older than Trixie. Calling themselves the almost-twins, they often quarreled, but they also understood each other and were fiercely loyal.

  “What kind of sense do you make of Bobby’s story?” Trixie asked.

  “None,” Mart answered. “How could he have seen a wheelchair? Who do we know that owns one?” Before she could think of an answer, Trixie heard the familiar sound of the Bob-White station wagon. She hurried to the back porch. As Jim Frayne slid out from behind the steering wheel, he called, “Did you save the pie?”

  “We fought the good fight, but Moms protected that delectable concoction with her very life!” Mart shouted back. Jim, Honey, Di Lynch, and the young Beldens had picked raspberries all morning in anticipation of the evening treat.

  Trixie met Honey with a hug. She waved a hello to red-haired Jim and watched as Hans and Juliana crossed the yard.

  Tiny and blond, Juliana Maasden glowed with happiness, providing a sharp contrast with the injured girl who had recently regained her memory and health at Crabapple Farm. The solution of the mystery of Juliana’s identity was considered by both Trixie and Honey to be one of their proudest achievements. They had proved Jim Frayne’s dishonest stepfather to be the cause of the wreck that had almost cost Juliana both her life and her inheritance. And they had given Jim a gift he treasured above all others—a living relative.

  Blowing kisses, Juliana ran across the drive and up the steps. As she jostled for space on the porch swing, Mr. Beldens paper slid off his lap. He woke with a start and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Who’s asleep? I was—”

  “—just thinking with my eyes shut!” chorused Trixie and Honey.

  Blond and tall, Hans leaned against a porch post. He shared the happy mood but said little. A rising young lawyer in Holland, he had come from Amsterdam to search for Juliana. His arrival had caused her to regain her memory. In August, he would take her home to Holland.

  When all the guests were comfortable, Trixie took Honey to her room, then threw herself on one of the twin beds, anus flung wide. Dramatically she cried, “It’s happened! She’s here!”

  Honey looked bewildered. “Who?”

  Trixie scowled. “My cousin, Hallie Belden! That’s who! I’ve told you about her.”

  “Oh! You mean the one you used to fight with.”

  “Exactly,” Trixie said. “And because of her, I’ve already made one trip to the doghouse.”

  “What happened?” Honey asked sympathetically. Trixie drew a deep breath. “You know me! I went charging around and got in trouble with Dad.” Trixie rushed about her room, acting out her search for Hallie’s missing clothing. Both girls collapsed on the bed closest to the window, giggling noisily. Then Trixie sobered. “But there is something unexplained.

  Bobby says he saw somebody in a wheelchair.”

  From the doorway Bobby said, “That’s wrong. I said I saw a wheelchair, and I said I saw somebody, but I didn’t say I saw somebody in the wheelchair.”

  “Bobby!” Trixie shouted. “You know better than to enter a room without knocking!”

  As reasonable as Trixie herself, Bobby argued, “I’m not in, and I couldn’t knock on the door. It’s open.”

  “So it is, Bobby,” Honey agreed.

  Growing more and more frustrated, Trixie said, “Well, if you didn’t see anybody in the chair, maybe you didn’t see it at all!”

  “Wrong,” Bobby declared. “I saw it, but Brian drove in front, so I couldn’t see it anymore.”

  Trixie shook her short sandy curls. “He keeps saying that. 'Brian drove in front.’ ”

  “Well, he did!” Bobby marched from the room. From downstairs came moans and groans of sheer agony. Always hungry, Mart shouted, “When are we to partake of the well-earned succulence?” From porch and backyard came the answer, “Right now!” Down on the porch, Trixie found that Brian had already introduced Hallie, who now sat on the steps between Jim and Bobby. Mart sprawled nearby, taking up space enough for two. “Hey
!” he exclaimed. “There’s space going to waste. Somebody’s missing. I demand a roll call.”

  Honey teased, “As if you don’t know who’s absent, Mart Belden. Di’s dad took the family out to dinner. He’s going to drop Di off at our house on the way home so that she can spend the night. She wants to help with the wedding plans.”

  Mart pretended to pull spectacles to the end of his nose. “Thank you, Miss Wheeler. One must keep the record straight. One should know where one’s compatriots are at all times. Consider—”

  “I’d consider it more important to keep track of my enemies,” Jim put in.

  “In case their records aren’t so straight?” Trixie asked.

  Trixie saw that Hallie was watching and listening. Like the new child on a playground, Hallie wanted in on the activity, but she wasn’t sure what game was being played. Well, Trixie thought, I’m not sure I want her in the game!

  At that moment Trixie heard Juliana tell Mrs. Belden, “Just think. Soon I’ll be Mrs. Hans Vorwald.” Juliana wasn’t playing a game. Her marriage would last “till death do us part.”

  Mrs. Belden patted Juliana’s hand. “We’ll miss you, dear.”

  “Until the wedding, you’ll see me so often you’ll be sick of the sight of me,” Juliana said gaily.

  Mart sagged in every muscle. “I agree, Juliana. For the want of a vision of beauty, I languish. Now, there are many kinds of beauty. For example, the smile on a youth’s face when he contemplates a juicy berry pie—that’s beauty beyond compare!”

  “Okay, okay, I get it!” Trixie said. “You want to feed your face.”

  “Why didn’t he just say so?” Hallie asked.

  Amid the laughter, Trixie got up and went to the kitchen to cut Mrs. Beldens cobbler.

  After the group was served, Trixie found that Jim had reserved space for her. She forgot the day’s tensions as she and Jim enjoyed their pie together. Only when she heard Hallie chuckle was Trixie reminded that some changes had been made at the farm.

  Honey stood and reached for Peter Beldens plate. “Everybody help clean up, then come home with us. We have wedding plans to talk about.”