The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

by Campbell, Julie

  Your TRIXIE BELDEN Library

  1 The Secret of the Mansion

  2 The Red Trailer Mystery

  3 The Gatehouse Mystery

  4 The Mysterious Visitor

  5 The Mystery Off Glen Road

  6 Mystery in Arizona

  7 The Mysterious Code

  8 The Black Jacket Mystery

  9 The Happy Valley Mystery

  10 The Marshland Mystery

  11 The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

  12 The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

  13 The Mystery on Cobbett’s Island

  14 The Mystery of the Emeralds

  15 Mystery on the Mississippi

  16 The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

  17 The Mystery of the Uninvited Guest

  18 The Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper

  19 The Secret of the Unseen Treasure

  20 The Mystery Off Old Telegraph Road

  21 The Mystery of the Castaway Children

  22 Mystery at Mead’s Mountain

  23 The Mystery of the Queen’s Necklace

  24 Mystery at Saratoga

  25 The Sasquatch Mystery

  26 The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

  27 The Mystery of the Ghostly Galleon

  28 The Hudson River Mystery

  29 The Mystery of the Velvet Gown

  30 The Mystery of the Midnight Marauder

  31 Mystery at Maypenny’s

  32 The Mystery of the Whispering Witch (new)

  33 The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim (new)

  34 The Mystery of the Missing Millionaire (new)

  Copyright © 1979 by

  Western Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Produced in U.S.A.

  GOLDEN®, GOLDEN PRESS®, and TRIXIE BELDEN® are registered trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  ISBN 0-307-21597-0

  All names, characters, and events in this story are entirely fictitious.

  A Mysterious Disappearance • 1

  FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD TRIXIE BELDEN stood on the school steps, looked up at the sky, and groaned. “I knew it!” she declared to her best friend, Honey Wheeler. “It’s going to rain. There’s going to be a storm, and it’s going to ruin all our plans.”

  Honey’s hazel eyes twinkled. “It isn’t either going to rain,” she said. “The forecast for today and tomorrow is for clear skies and sunny weather. So you can relax.”

  “Is that so!” Trixie said, brushing back the unruly sandy curls from her forehead. She pointed to the fleecy white clouds floating gently above the faraway Catskill Mountains. “Then what,” she demanded, “do you call those things over there—marshmallows?”

  Honey chuckled and tucked her hand through her friend’s arm. Honey’s real name was Madeleine, though no one had called her that for a very long time. She had earned her nickname because of her golden brown hair and sweet disposition. She was the same age as Trixie, though taller and slimmer, and was Trixie’s closest friend and her partner in many adventures. Both girls loved mysteries and had solved several together. Someday they hoped to open and operate the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency.

  On this fall day, though, the only mystery on Honey’s mind was how to hurry Trixie onto the school bus that was waiting to take them home. It was Friday. All the teachers at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School had to attend a conference that afternoon in White Plains, New York, so their students had been released from school at midday.

  “You can scowl at the sky later, Trix,” Honey coaxed. “Remember, we still have chores to do today if we want to get time off to help at the charity bazaar tomorrow. It isn’t often that school lets out early. Come on. Let’s go!”

  Trixie sighed and allowed Honey to urge her down the school steps and out to the road. “I expect you’re right about the weather,” she said slowly. “It’s just that I keep on thinking that something’s about to happen—something to do with the bazaar tomorrow.”

  Honey stopped. “A good something or a bad something?”

  Trixie’s usually merry blue eyes were troubled. “That’s just it,” she confessed. “I don’t know.”

  “Oh, what, pray tell, can be puzzling yon peabrained, tangle-haired female now?” a teasing voice from somewhere above them asked. “Can it be that she is, at this very moment, pondering the mystery of the procrastinating Bob-Whites?” It was freckle-faced Mart, Trixie’s “middle” brother. He was grinning at them through an open window of the bus.

  Trixie frowned. “I’ve told you before, Mart Belden, that my hair isn’t tangled. It’s just naturally curly like yours. And I am not a pea-brain!”

  “I should say not!” Honey exclaimed loyally. “Why, just think of all the trouble Trixie has gotten us out of. If it hadn’t been for her quick thinking, my brother Jim never would have been saved from the fire when his great-uncle’s mansion burned. And who, I’d like to know, solved the mystery of the missing grasshopper when Hoppy, the weather vane, was stolen from the roof of the Town Hall?”

  Honey paused to take a breath, but it looked as though she was all ready to go on and on.

  Trixie smiled but waved a warning hand toward the rapidly filling bus. “Hush,” she said. “We shouldn’t talk about the adventures of the Bob-Whites where everyone can hear. Although we’re not exactly a secret club, I don’t think we need to tell the whole school about the stuff we do.”

  Mart laughed and threw up his hands in mock surrender. “I was about to give up, anyway,” he said in a lower voice. “And to prove it, I won’t even mention some of the more pulchritudinous mysteries Ms. Great Brain has led us into.”

  Trixie was accustomed to Mart’s use of big words, which he loved to use but could never spell. This time she knew exactly how to put a stop to his teasing.

  “For your information, Mart Belden,” she said airily, “the word pulchritudinous means ‘endowed with physical beauty.’ I know because we had to define it in English class yesterday. So thank you for the compliment, my dear little twin brother.”

  Mart’s face reddened with irritation. If there was anything he hated, it was being called Trixie’s twin. He was fifteen, eleven months older than his sister, but enough like her in appearance to cause people to gush over him and tell him they could see that he and Trixie had been born at the same time.

  “If you’re so smart, Sherlock,” he growled, “then maybe you’d better look into your crystal ball, or whatever it is you do, and find out what’s keeping the others.” With that, he withdrew his head from the open window, slouched back in his seat, and pretended to go to sleep.

  Mart’s words should have made Trixie feel more uneasy than ever. Instead, she felt happier than she had all day. She and Mart were really very fond of each other. She knew that if ever there was any kind of trouble, she could rely on Mart to help solve it.

  As she and Honey clambered onto the bus and plopped down in the seat behind him, Trixie whispered, “Forget my feelings of gloom and doom, Honey. Nothing’s going to happen to our arrangements for the charity bazaar tomorrow. I expect I’m just being silly. Everything’s going to be great. And anyway, the other Bob-Whites will see to it that this is a successful fund-raiser for UNICEF.”

  “The other Bob-Whites,” besides Trixie, Honey, and Mart, meant Diana Lynch, who was the same age as Trixie and Honey and was considered one of the prettiest girls in the ninth grade; Trixie’s eldest brother, Brian; Honey’s adopted brother, Jim; and Dan Mangan. Dan, Mart, Brian, and Jim were all students at Sleepyside Junior-Senior High School.

  Not long ago, the seven tee
n-agers had formed their own special club and called it the Bob-Whites of the Glen, B.W.G.’s for short. The club was not for fun alone. Its members were there to help the community, as well as each other, and they had worked hard to make their small, close-knit group a real success.

  Honey glanced around the bus. “I wonder what is keeping the others? Oh, it’s all right. I can see the boys coming. But where’s Di? She should be here by now. Maybe there’s something to that hunch of yours, after all, Trix.”

  “I told you,” Trixie answered, “I’m sure I was just being silly. Forget it.”

  “I don’t think your hunches are ever silly,” Honey said. “In fact, I’ve often wondered if you’re one of those people who have ESP—you know, extrasensory perception. Remember the time when you were the first to realize that Di’s ‘Uncle’ Monty was not her real uncle at all? Why, even the Lynches’ butler was fooled. You know, I don’t think old prim-and-proper Harrison ever recovered from the shock.” She laughed at the memory of it.

  Trixie chuckled, though her face was flushed with embarrassment. “Let’s not forget that Harrison is over it enough to volunteer to supervise all the arrangements for tomorrow. With Di’s parents away in Arizona, I don’t know what we’d do without him.”

  “He even offered to help Di’s cook make all the mountains of sandwiches and cookies we’re going to need in the refreshment tent,” Honey added.

  “Harrison has turned out to be a real good sport. I have to admit that I never thought he would.”

  “Maybe that was one time when your ESP wasn’t working,” Honey said, smiling.

  “But I don’t think I have ESP,” Trixie protested, her face reddening again. “At least, I don’t have it any more than anyone else. I think we all notice little details without noticing that we’re noticing—if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” Honey giggled, “but go on. What happens then?”

  “Then, all at once, the little details add up until—click!—you’ve suddenly got the whole picture in your head, and the entire thing fits together like a jigsaw puzzle.”

  “Like what, for instance?”

  Trixie said slowly, “For instance, when Di got on the bus this morning, she sat in a seat all by herself and stared out of the window.”

  “So?”

  “And when we were talking about how kind it was of her parents to allow us to hold the entire bazaar on the Lynch estate, Di didn’t join in the conversation.”

  Honey gasped. “And this morning when I stopped to talk to her, she mumbled something about being late for a class, even though I knew she wasn’t.”

  Mart’s freckled face appeared slowly above the back of his bus seat. “You know, squaws, for once I think the convolutions of your respective minds might be onto something. I’ve been trying to catch Di to ask her about the ring toss booth, but she’s been avoiding me all day. I thought I’d done something to upset her. If you ask me, there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark! What can it be?”

  The three stared at each other. All at once, Trixie’s fears returned in a rush. So that was what had been bothering her all morning! Di had been avoiding the Bob-Whites! Something must have happened to upset her so much that she didn’t want to share the news with her best friends. What could be that bad?

  So many possibilities came rushing into Trixie’s mind at once that she forgot to be annoyed with Mart for listening to their conversation. She didn’t even notice the other boys climb onto the bus.

  “Something wrong, Trixie?” Jim’s quiet voice asked over her shoulder. “You look as though you’ve just thought of something you wish you hadn’t. Come on, tell Uncle Jim all about it. It can’t be that bad.”

  For a long moment, Trixie didn’t answer him. She was beginning to think it was that bad. She concentrated on remembering the events of the morning. She had seen Di twice, once at her locker and once at the telephone in the lunch court. Both times Di had seemed not to see her. On the second occasion, however, Di had almost dropped the telephone in her haste to hurry away before Trixie could say a word.

  Trixie also remembered how she and Di had known each other since they were in kindergarten together. They had never been really close friends until Di became a member of the Bob-Whites.

  When jolly Mr. Lynch became a millionaire, Di had had a hard time getting used to living in the huge house that was now her home. At one point, Di had even been afraid of Harrison, her own butler!

  But all that was in the past. Trixie now found herself growing more and more certain that whatever was worrying Di this morning had something to do with the UNICEF bazaar the following day.

  All the Bob-Whites had worked hard for weeks, collecting donations of handmade quilts, hand-hooked rugs, plants and pots, and baked goods of all kinds. There were to be gaily decorated booths for games and sideshows, for art exhibits and macramé displays. The booths had already been set up on the Lynch estate. All of the proceeds from the bazaar were to be donated to UNICEF—the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund.

  Even though Mr. and Mrs. Lynch could not be there, they had insisted on lending their beautiful grounds to the Bob-Whites for what promised to be the biggest fund-raising event the little town of Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson had ever seen.

  “Consider it part of our donation,” Mr. Lynch had said, his eyes twinkling. “Though if Harrison hadn’t offered to help you, it might have been a different story. As it is, we know we can rely on all of you to see that everything is a big success.”

  But now Trixie found Mart’s words echoing over and over in her mind. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark. What can it be?

  She sighed, then said to Jim, “We’re worried about Di. We think she’s got something on her mind she doesn’t want us to know about.”

  “I did notice that she was extra quiet today,” Brian said. “Maybe she’s not feeling well.” His dark eyes showed his concern.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Trixie answered, “though maybe you noticed more than I noticed, without noticing you were noticing—if you know what I mean.”

  She stopped, aware that she was sounding confused again. Someday Brian was going to become a doctor and work at the school that Jim planned to open for underprivileged orphan boys. Trixie suspected that Brian sometimes practiced guessing what was wrong with people, even if they only had the sniffles.

  “It seems to me,” Dan said, “that there’s one easy way of finding out what’s worrying Di.” He made a small motion with his hand toward the front of the bus. “Here she comes now. Why don’t you ask her?”

  Trixie held her breath and looked at the tall, slim, dark-haired girl who had just gracefully climbed the bus steps. Di hesitated when she saw all the Bob-Whites watching her. Then she made her way slowly toward them and stopped at Trixie’s side.

  Trixie did not need more than one quick glance to confirm that her hunch had been right. Di was struggling to keep her lips from quivering. She was on the verge of tears!

  “Di? What is it? What’s wrong?” Trixie asked in a low voice. She reached out and gently pulled Di into the seat beside herself and Honey. “Is it something to do with our plans for tomorrow?”

  “You can tell us,” said Honey. “It really can’t be as terrible as all that.” She tried to laugh. “We’ve been thinking that we’ve done something awful to offend you.”

  Di gasped and hid her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled as she moaned, “Oh, no! It’s just— There’s something I’ve got to tell you, and when you hear what it is, you’ll never want to speak to me again.”

  Brian said quietly over her shoulder, “You ought to know us better than that by now, Di. Remember, it’s all for one and one for all.”

  “Just like the jolly old musketeers,” cried irrepressible Mart, leaping to his feet and brandishing an imaginary sword. “The only thing is, of course, that there were only four of them, and there are seven of us.”

  The bus started with a
jerk that nearly toppled Mart headfirst into the girls’ laps. Trixie pushed him back into his seat and said between her teeth, “There are only going to be six of us if you don’t sit down and keep quiet, brother dear. But Brian’s right, Di. We’re here to help each other. Won’t you tell us what’s wrong?”

  Di raised her head and looked at her friends. Her violet eyes were wet with tears. “You were right, Trixie,” she said with a break in her voice. “It is about tomorrow. The way things are now, there isn’t going to be a bazaar. I phoned my parents this morning, and they said we’ll have to cancel all our plans for tomorrow. You see, Harrison has disappeared!”

  The Search ● 2

  MART STARED. “What do you mean, Harrison’s disappeared? Did he vanish in a puff of red smoke, or what?”

  Trixie groaned. “Oh, woe! I’ve got an idiot for a brother! Of course Di didn’t mean that. What she meant was—that is—what did you mean, Di?”

  “I mean that no one knows where he is,” Di said, her voice shaking. “Cook says that Harrison received a phone call last night about eight o’clock. After he hung up, he told her he had to go out. He said he’d only be gone an hour, but no one’s seen him since. His bed hasn’t been slept in and his hat and coat are gone.”

  Brian frowned. “Did you call the police?”

  “Cook talked to Sergeant Molinson this morning,” Di answered, “but it didn’t do any good. He said his hands are tied until a person’s been missing for twenty-four hours. In any case, he seemed to think we were making a big fuss about nothing. He said Harrison probably just wanted an extra day off and took it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Harrison, though,” Trixie said, thinking hard.

  “Oh, Trixie, you’re right!” Di cried. “That’s exactly what I thought. But what could have happened to him? Where could he have gone? What are we going to do? Dad won’t allow us to hold the bazaar without him.”

  Trixie glanced at the others. She could tell from the looks on their faces that they, too, were remembering the daring robbery that had taken place at the Lynch mansion not so very long ago. Since that time, Harrison had seen to it that his employer’s security arrangements were strictly enforced. Mr. Lynch knew he could rely on him.