Brian stared at her as though she had lost her mind. "What are you talking about? Houses don’t go around getting lost."
Mart gazed up at the sky. "Haven’t seen any cyclones around recently. Or tornadoes. And the gentle little breeze that wafted into my window this morning wasn’t exactly a hurricane." He shrugged, waving his hands. "But, of course, Trix, if you say the clubhouse is gone, why, it’s gone. Poof! Vanished into thin air."
"Oh, cut it out," Brian commanded and appealed to Jim. "What’s Trixie trying to tell us?" Jim explained, but no sooner had he finished than Honey appeared and had to be told the bad news all over again. Then they all began talking at once.
"It’s just not possible," Honey wailed, sinking down on the grassy lawn. "I always thought Celia was one of our best friends."
"And the gatehouse was such a perfect place," Mart said. "Who would have thought that anybody else would have it as a gift?"
"It was perfect," Brian agreed, "but let’s think of it in the past tense from now on, definitely. It isn’t ours. It never was, really, so that’s that." Trixie tossed her sandy curls. "I don’t think we should give up so easily. Let’s go down there and make it so hideous Celia will never want to go near it again. I feel like gouging holes in the floors."
"That’s a good idea," Mart said sarcastically. "Especially since the floors are dirt. Even Bobby would be able to replace your divots without too much trouble."
"Then let’s smear tar all over the walls," Trixie suggested, half-laughing, half-serious. "Gallons and gallons of nice sticky, smelly black tar ought to do the trick!"
Honey frowned up at her. "I don’t see how you can joke, Trixie, when everything is so perfectly awful."
"That’s right," Jim said. "Let’s try to make some sense for a change."
But although they spent most of the weekend trying to figure out how to solve this new problem, they got nowhere. Honey kept saying, "There’s plenty of land." And Jim would reply, "But the ground will be frozen soon." Then Brian would say, "We could knock together a shack, but we don’t want that."
Mart finally summed it up: "Let’s let it simmer in our subconscious minds until next Saturday and hold another meeting then. We’re all too stunned right now to make sense."
Trixie was only too glad to second this motion. She, herself, hadn’t been able to contribute anything in the way of ideas at the meeting because her thoughts were so jumbled. Somehow she had to prove that Uncle Monty was an impostor, but first of all she wanted to find out why Di refused to come to the phone on Saturday.
It didn’t make sense, unless Harrison, because he didn’t approve of her, had deliberately lied. "Harrison never did like me," Trixie reflected. "And now, since he knows that I swiped a candle from the dining room at the party, he probably has decided that I’m not exactly fit company for Di."
For once in her life, Trixie was glad to go to school on Monday morning. Di was not on the bus, but there was nothing unusual about that. As often as not, she traveled to and from school in the limousine.
When the bus stopped in front of the school, Trixie was the first one off. She tore into the locker room, and, as she had hoped, found Di there. Suddenly Trixie was tongue-tied. All weekend she had planned just what she would say at this very moment, but now all she could get out was "Oh, hello, Di."
Diana carefully placed her coat on a hanger inside her locker and slammed the door. "Don’t you speak to me, Trixie Belden," she said and swept past her without another word.
Trixie’s heart sank. Harrison hadn’t lied, after all. Honey came into the locker room then, and Trixie said, "Di isn’t speaking to me. I didn’t say anything about it before, Honey, but when I called her from your house on Saturday she wouldn’t come to the phone. And I don’t know why, Honey."
Honey gasped. "Oh, Trixie, you’ve hurt her feelings. She knows you think her uncle is an impostor and a thief and everything."
Trixie shook her head. "She can’t know unless one of us told her, and none of us would, since we know how she feels about Uncle Monty."
The bell rang then, and they hurried off to their homeroom. All morning Trixie wandered from class to class in a daze. During classes she never once raised her hand, and when called on for answers, she stumbled and stuttered and was sternly frowned upon. The math instructor did more than frown. She said crossly, "Trixie, I’m sorry, but you can’t go home on the bus today. You’ll have to see me after school. Please call your mother during lunch and arrange for some other transportation."
Meekly Trixie said, "Yes, Miss Golden," but she wasn’t really listening. So she completely forgot to call her mother during the lunch hour. It was Honey who reminded her that Miss Golden wanted to see her just as she was about to board the bus.
"Gleeps," Trixie yelled and grabbed Mart’s arm as he tried to push past her. "Tell Moms I’ve got to stay after school. I’ll come home C.O.D. in a cab if there’s anything left of me."
As it turned out, Miss Golden was not cross; she was simply disappointed. "You’ve got an excellent mind, Trixie," she said, "when you concentrate. Are you worried about something?" "Yes," Trixie said truthfully. "One of my best friends is mad at me."
Miss Golden laughed. "Well, kiss and make up, and see if you can’t concentrate a little more in class tomorrow, dear."
"I will," Trixie promised and hurried down to the locker room. Suddenly it all dawned on her. Uncle Monty was the answer, of course. It was he who had turned Di against her. And the reason was obvious. He didn’t want Trixie to be invited out to the Lynches’ house again. He didn’t want her to have any opportunity of looking at those portraits in the gallery. He wasn’t taking any chances at all. With Di not speaking to her, Trixie couldn’t even ask her any questions which might be embarrassing to Uncle Monty. He felt he was safe when Trixie was not around.
If he was an impostor.
Trixie was surer than ever now that he was. She slipped on her jacket and left the school without telephoning for a cab. If she didn’t arrive home for an hour or more, no one would worry. If she couldn’t get the proof she wanted in one way, she would get it in another.
On Sunday Trixie had carefully inspected the maps in the glove compartment of her father’s car, so she knew exactly where Hawthorne Street was. Almost running, she set off for that part of town. But when she left Main Street and tinned into the alley that led to it, she slowed to a walk. It was a narrow, winding alley, with sidewalks that were lined on both sides by two-story houses that looked so rickety they made Trixie feel as though they might topple down on her head any minute.
"There’s nothing to be afraid of," Trixie said to herself firmly. "This used to be a cowpath once. I’m going to pretend that all these strange-looking people are harmless cows."
The people who were sitting on the stoops and the sagging porches were strange-looking, but they stared at Trixie as though she were the one who was odd. The women, in their bright shawls and full skirts, looked like gypsies, and the men, when they moved at all, shuffled as though their feet hurt. Even the children moved slowly and stared suspiciously at Trixie as she passed by.
She began to walk faster after a while, and at the same time she wished she had gone straight home from school. Suddenly the narrow alley ended, and before her lay a long, straight street. A dusty sign told her that it was Hawthorne Street.
Trixie glanced at the houses and suppressed a shudder. They were no worse than the dilapidated buildings in the alley, but there was something evil about them. The accumulated dirt of years clung to them, and there wasn’t a single solitary soul in sight. But Trixie sensed that people were watching her from behind those filthy, curtainless windows. She forced herself to keep moving and realized that she was shuffling along the street just as the men in the alley behind her had shuffled.
"It’s the air around here," she thought. "It’s absolutely stifling. It makes me feel as though it’s not even worthwhile breathing."
There were no porches or stoops here. Although the t
arnished brass numerals on the doors were clogged with dirt, they were so close that they were easy to read. The first one Trixie glanced at was Number 201, and then, almost before she realized it, she had stopped in front of Number 291. At that same moment the door was opened and a man came out.
Because the door opened right onto the narrow sidewalk, and Trixie had stopped right in front of it, he almost stepped on her toes. She drew back just in time and said, "I’m sorry."
Inwardly she thought, I’m a lot more sorry than you think. I wish I’d taken Tom’s advice and stayed away from here. Her knees were shaking because the man was so ugly and the street was so silent. He was wearing a tight-fitting, shiny blue suit and had obviously not shaved for several days. His eyebrows were so bushy and black they seemed to merge with his eyelashes, giving Trixie the impression that he was wearing a black domino. Trixie shuddered as he stared at her.
And then she realized that he was as startled by the sight of her as she had been by the sight of him. Instantly her legs stopped shaking, and, although she had no idea who this strange and ugly man was, she said, "I guess you must be Mr. Olyfant."
He glared at her through his mask of eyebrows and eyelashes. "What’s it to you if I am?"
Too late Trixie realized that she had no answer to this question. She had come to this sordid place without making plans, hoping that somehow she could get some proof that Uncle Monty was an impostor. There were probably lots of clues inside the hotel, but she knew now that she would never have the courage to enter the door, even if she were invited to do so. Weakly she said, "I was just wondering. That’s all."
Carefully he took a cigarette from his pocket and lighted it. "Anything else you want to know?" His voice was both insolent and nonchalant, but Trixie noticed that his hands were trembling.
Shrewdly she guessed that he wished she would go away just as much as she wished she had never come. As she stared at his hands she realized with a start that the book matches he was holding were exactly like those which Harrison had used when he lighted the candles in the dining room at Di’s party. The flap was royal blue with "The Lynches" printed on it in big, sprawling gold letters.
Trixie knew that she could not possibly be mistaken. For several minutes on Halloween she had gazed longingly at the matches when Harrison closed the flap, hoping that he would put them down somewhere within reach so she could borrow them. She remembered thinking that the matches must have been very expensive. They were outsize, to begin with, and the gold lettering was very distinctive.
How had a package of those personalized matches got into the pocket of this ugly man coming out of this clingy building on Hawthorne Street?
A Narrow Escape • 12
TRIXIE QUICKLY DECIDED that there could be only one answer to the question. As Tom Delanoy had hinted, Uncle Monty had come back to Hawthorne Street after he arrived at the Lynches’. During one of his visits, without realizing it, he must have left behind in the hotel a package of those personalized matches.
As though reading her mind, the ugly man glanced sharply at the flap and hastily tucked the book into his pocket. Then his hand shot out and closed around Trixie’s wrist.
"Listen, girlie," he said in a menacing tone of voice, "I guess you and I had better go inside my hotel and have a little talk."
Trixie was terrified, but she made up her mind that she wouldn’t let him know it. "So you are Mr. Olyfant?"
He nodded. "And who are you?"
"Trixie Belden," she told him coolly, although she was sure he could hear the wild beating of her heart. "My father works in the bank."
Olyfant’s bushy eyebrows shot up. "Peter Belden’s kid, huh? I’ve read about you in the newspaper. Fancy yourself as quite a little detective, don’t you?" The eyebrows came down again. "I’d say you were a snoop, and I don’t like snoops. Are you coming inside with me now, or do I have to drag you?"
"My mother," Trixie continued just as though he hadn’t interrupted, "expected me home from school an hour ago. She’s probably so worried about me she must have already called the police. You’d better let me go!"
A disagreeable smile twitched his lips. "So nobody knows where you are?" His grip on her wrist tightened, and he pulled her a step toward the hotel.
Trixie’s pounding heart missed a beat. Nobody did. She forced her own lips into an impudent smile. "Don’t worry," she said, "it won’t take the police long to track me to your horrible hotel. A lot of people saw me turn off Main Street into that alley back there, and practically everybody in the alley stared at me as I walked down into this street. If you don’t let me go, this place will be swarming with cops in a few minutes."
He snatched his hand away from her. "Scram," he hissed. "Get out of here as fast as you can, and don’t ever come back."
Trixie was only too glad to obey his orders. But although she wanted to turn and run as fast as she could, she forced herself to move slowly. She could feel his eyes boring into her back until she mingled with the people in the crowded alley. Now they didn’t seem strange at all; they seemed like the most friendly and the most pleasant people in the world.
"After that awful Olyfant," Trixie reflected with a grin, "even a tribe of cannibals would look nice to me."
A cab was parked on the comer of Main Street, and she gratefully climbed inside. Weak with relief because at last she was really safe, she sank back against the cushions and stared at her shaking hands. Gradually they stopped shaking as Trixie’s spirits rose. Getting the proof she needed had been worth the terrifying minutes she had spent in front of Olyfant’s hotel. There was no doubt in her mind now that it was Uncle Monty whom Tom had seen at the station that Saturday afternoon.
The cab stopped at the Belden’s back terrace, and Mart, looking very cross, came down the terrace steps and paid the taxi driver.
"Listen, lame-brain," he began and then, as she sank down on the low stone wall of the terrace, "Gleeps! You look as though you’d seen a ton of ghosts. What happened? Are you going to flunk math this term?"
Trixie opened her mouth to tell him about her frightening experience, then changed her mind. Mart could be very sympathetic at times, but she sensed that this wasn’t one of those times. "Is Moms mad at me because I had to stay after school to talk to Miss Golden?" Trixie asked in a quavering voice.
"She doesn’t even know it," Mart said disgustedly. "How could you have forgotten, you dope? She and her prize mums are at the Garden Club show. Which means that you owe me a buck. Seventy-five cents for the taxi, and a quarter for taking care of Bobby."
Oh, oh, Trixie thought, how could I have forgotten the flower show? Suppose Brian and Mart hadn’t come straight home from school. Bobby would have been all alone this whole past hour! She shuddered. Bobby, when left to his own resources for even a short time, usually managed to get himself into some sort of scrape. Very often these scrapes amounted to narrow escapes.
"I’m sorry, Mart," Trixie said contritely. "I’ll pay you back as soon as I get my allowance on Saturday. And thanks for taking over for me."
"I’ve a good mind to charge you double for baby-sitting," Mart said. "Or should I say fiendsitting? Wait till you hear—"
The phone rang then, and Trixie hurried inside to answer it.
It was Honey. "Can you come up right away? I have something very important to tell you."
"I can’t," Trixie said. "I was supposed to come straight home from school to take care of Bobby while Moms is at the Garden Club show. I forgot, and Mart has been stuck with him, and he’s furious. Can’t you come down here to tell me, Honey?"
"In a sec," Honey said and hung up.
Trixie hurried up to her room and changed her skirt for jeans. Bobby was playing in his room across the hall, and he yelled at her:
"Hey! Where you been?"
"Oh, around," Trixie said vaguely. "Did Mart give you your orange juice to drink?"
Bobby came into her room, dragging a very worn giant panda behind him. "Nope. Mart didn’t gived it to
me. I gived it to my own self."
"How smart of you!" Trixie gave him a hug. "You’re getting very grown up since you started school."
"I squoozed it my own self, too," he said, proudly holding out his hands. On every finger was a bandage. "I cutted myself with that great big kitchen knife but I didn’t cry at all. I didn’t yell, either."
Mart appeared then. "In the two minutes that elapsed between the arrival of his bus and our bus, he managed to create a shambles. I don’t know how he does it."
"Bobby," Trixie cried, holding him close to her. "You know you’re not supposed to touch knives." Guiltily she thought, If he’d cut himself badly it would have been all my fault. I’ve got to stop going around in a daze, or something awful will happen.
Honey called to her from the terrace, and Trixie yelled out the window, "Come up to my room." She guided Bobby back across the hall. "Play with your toys like a good boy for just a little while, then I’ll give you a long ride on my bike." Mart greeted Honey at the top of the stairs. "You girls are certainly acting suspiciously. First Trix arrives from the village looking as though she’d seen a ghost. Then Honey arrives gasping for breath. What gives, girls?"
He waited a minute and, when neither of them replied, galloped downstairs.
Once the girls were alone in Trixie’s room, Honey exploded. "Oh, Trixie, you were absolutely right about Di’s uncle. He’s a terrible man. I called her up after I got home from school to find out why she’s mad at you, and do you know what?"
Trixie carefully closed the door and sank down on her bed. "No, but I can guess."
"He told her a lot of lies about you," Honey continued in an outraged voice. "After the party Friday night, he said that you said a lot of mean things about her and her mother. He said you made fun of their house and their clothes and just about everything!"
The Mysterious Visitor Page 9
