The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

by Campbell, Julie

  Trixie glared at him. “Oh, Mart! You didn’t tell her my suspicion that something’s going on that we don’t know about?”

  “I didn’t know it was supposed to be some kind of secret,” he answered gruffly. “Anyway, I only said that you thought Harrison was lying in his teeth about his accident.”

  “Did you tell her about the cellar door and the pebbles, too?”

  “I told her everything. So what?”

  “So I wasn’t going to tell her any of that stuff!” Mart glared back. “For pete’s sake, why not?” he said, trying to keep his voice low. “What’s the matter with you, anyway? You’re making it sound as if Di’s some kind of stranger. She isn’t. She’s a Bob-White, remember?”

  Trixie picked up the tray and walked away without answering. How could she explain to Mart how she felt when she didn’t know how to explain it to herself? Instinctively, she had guessed that Di wouldn’t like the news they had to tell. But then, Trixie didn’t like keeping secrets from Di, either.

  She glanced across at her friend, who was busy serving punch on the far side of the tent. Today Di was wearing a cool-looking green linen dress. Her Bob-White jacket was draped casually around her slim shoulders. For a brief moment, Di’s violet eyes met Trixie’s blue ones. Then, unsmiling, Di tossed her long dark hair and looked away.

  Trixie stood frozen. She wished the ground would open and swallow her up. Di had cut her dead!

  Trixie swallowed hard and became aware of someone talking close by.

  “No, Dunham,” Mr. Parkinson was saying. “I simply can’t see lending another thing to the museum. After what happened to the Ming, I’d be a fool to let you have the Gainsborough.”

  “But the painting would be quite all right,” Mr. Dunham was urging. “I guarantee it. Think of the townspeople. Think of the museum.”

  “I have thought about it,” Mr. Parkinson said shortly, “many times. I’ve also thought about Jonathan Crandall. I trusted him, and he let me down. I never would have believed he would turn out to be a thief. If it hadn’t been for the witness who testified that he saw the vase arrive at the museum that Friday, I might have thought the delivery people had taken it.”

  Mr. Dunham looked uncomfortable. “I was extremely sorry about the whole thing,” he said slowly. “Even now I don’t believe for a moment that Jonathan stole it.”

  “What other explanation can there possibly be?”

  “Well,” said Mr. Dunham, “if you remember, the museum had ordered a special glass display case to hold the vase, but it simply didn’t arrive in time.”

  “Then Jonathan should have put the vase in his office safe. I’ve said that all along.”

  “Ah,” said Mr. Dunham, “but the police discovered that he couldn’t do so on that particular Friday. The safe’s lock was broken. The locksmith came the next day to fix it, but by that time, it was too late. The vase was gone, and Jonathan was in the hospital.”

  Mr. Parkinson’s chair creaked as he leaned against the back of it. “All right. So what do you think happened?”

  Mr. Dunham lowered his voice. “I think that your Ming vase is still at the museum. I think Jonathan put it in with some of the other artifacts for safekeeping.”

  “Nonsense!” Mr. Parkinson boomed. “I think you’re just trying to find excuses for your friend. You’re a loyal man, Dunham, and I like that, but you’re talking complete nonsense! We searched that museum from attic to cellar. The Ming isn’t there!”

  “Maybe we just didn’t look in the right places,” Mr. Dunham said. “But the point I’m trying to make is that if you let us have the Gainsborough painting, nothing will happen to it.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Mr. Parkinson promised. > He looked up and saw Trixie. He smiled. “Why, here’s our food at last. My word, these kids have worked hard this afternoon! If the police had only worked as hard searching for my vase, it would have been found long ago. I’d have been glad to give ’em the reward, too.”

  Later, as everyone gathered up their purchases and got ready to go home, a frowning Trixie stood lost in thought. I wish I could think of something to say that would put everything right between Di and me, she reflected silently.

  Honey came and squeezed Trixie’s arm. “I know the attendance this afternoon was disappointing, but things could have been worse, you know.”

  “It isn’t only the bazaar I’m worrying about,” Trixie said miserably. “It’s Di.” And she told Honey all about it. “And Jim was wrong,” she concluded. “I didn’t find a replacement for Harrison’s derby hat at any of the booths. Somehow I don’t think it would have made any difference if I had.”

  Honey gave her a comforting hug. “Di will get over it. You’ll see. I think she just wanted to feel she was really in charge of things for a little while. It’s almost as if Harrison is a part of her family for the time being. Maybe she wants to protect him.”

  “Well, I think it’s dumb!” Trixie burst out. “Harrison’s big enough to look after himself. And it’s not as if I’m accusing him of trying to steal the Ming vase or anything.” She stopped, looking startled. “Or am I?”

  Honey gasped. “Trixie! You can’t mean that! We know who stole the vase. I overheard some of the townspeople talking about that very thing just a little while ago. Everyone’s certain Mr. Crandall took it.”

  “But everyone could be wrong,” Trixie pointed out stubbornly. “I found out a couple of very interesting things this afternoon.” She told Honey about the glass case and the safe with the faulty lock.

  Honey frowned. “I don’t see what that has to do with Harrison.”

  “I’m not sure that I do, either,” Trixie said, thinking hard, “but I’m beginning to. Let’s see.

  We know the Ming vase was delivered to Mr. Crandall at the museum that Friday night. Now, if you were the honest curator of the museum, what would you have done with it?”

  Honey rubbed her nose. “I couldn’t lock it in the display case because I didn’t have a display case. I couldn’t lock it in the safe because the lock was broken.” She sighed. “I give up. What did I do with it?”

  “Supposing you took it home with you,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “Supposing, too, that you needed a quick, safe hiding place for it, just till Monday. What else have you just hidden?”

  Honey took a deep breath. “Wait! I know you told me about this. Ah, I’ve got it! My wife’s birthday present! Oh, Trixie, it all fits.” Her face fell. “There’s only one thing you’ve forgotten. Where did Mr. Crandall hide the birthday present? No one knows.”

  “But we already have the clue to that.” Trixie was excited. “He said the answer was simple. ‘It’s simple,’ he kept saying. And he died that same weekend, Honey, so I think the vase is still at his house. I think Harrison suspects it, and I think he’s been trying to find it.”

  “To steal it?”

  “Maybe so. It’s worth a lot of money.”

  “But what’s simple about the hiding place?”

  “Mother Goose!” Trixie exclaimed suddenly. “There’s a book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes on the bookshelves at Sleepyside Hollow. I saw it. Mr. Crandall liked puzzles, remember? And Mother Goose has a rhyme that goes: ‘Simple Simon met a pieman....’ It’s simple—Simple Simon. I’ll bet if we look, we’ll find another clue somewhere on that page.”

  “Oh, Trix!” Honey breathed. “I think you’ve figured out the solution to everything!”

  Trixie didn’t answer. She had just looked up and realized, to her dismay, that three people had been standing close enough to overhear everything she had been saying.

  Mr. Dunham and Mr. Parkinson smiled at her and paid for their refreshments. The third person simply hurried out of the tent.

  The young woman making the hasty departure was neatly dressed in a navy blue suit. She was one of Harrison’s mysterious visitors.

  The Phantom Rides Again • 13

  ITWAS LATE AFTERNOON when the bazaar’s cleanup crews moved into action.

&nb
sp; The high school volunteers worked together like a well-drilled team. In no time at all, tables and chairs had been folded and taken into the house. The booths had been dismantled, the trash picked up, and the refreshment tent collapsed and stored away.

  Soon there was little left on the Lynches’ green lawns to show there ever had been a bazaar. Miss Trask could hardly believe the speed with which everything had disappeared.

  “That’s because we’ve all done this before,”

  Jim explained, grinning. “You ought to see us at the school’s Halloween carnival. We do it even faster then.”

  “And we haven’t really managed to make everything disappear,” Trixie added. “We’ve had to store a lot of our unsold merchandise in the clubhouse.” She looked worried. “I just don’t know what we’re going to do with it.”

  “I should think the best thing would be to return everything to the donors,” Miss Trask said. “Then later, perhaps, if you feel you want to hold another sale—” She hurried away.

  Trixie thought of the neat little cottage that used to be the Wheelers’ old gatehouse. The Bob-Whites had fixed it up, and now it served as their clubhouse. With well-trained wisteria and honeysuckle vines growing around it, the small building had never looked prettier—except for the inside, which was crammed full of bazaar items.

  “Maybe it would be best to return everything,” Trixie told the others. “I was wondering where we were all going to sit when we held our next meeting.”

  “I wish we had more money to donate to UNICEF,” Honey said.

  Mart, as club treasurer, was still in Di’s house, counting the proceeds. Di was helping him. The Bob-Whites knew, however, that the total was not going to be as much as they’d hoped for.

  “We’ll just have to think of some other moneymaking scheme,” Dan said.

  Brian groaned. “Don’t say that in front of Trixie. She’ll think up more chores for us to do in nothing flat.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Trixie said, “I’ve already thought of something. There’s a big reward for the recovery of that missing Ming vase. If we found it, we could add the reward to the money from the bazaar—”

  “Forget it, Trix,” Brian broke in. “I bet that vase was disposed of months ago.”

  Trixie shook her head. “I don’t think so. You see, today I found out some things about it that we didn’t know before.” She repeated the theory she had already talked over with Honey. “So I think,” she added, “if we go tonight, we might have a good chance of finding that vase at Mr. Crandall’s house.”

  “No.” Brian sounded firm. “Definitely not tonight. I’m bushed, and I’m sure all the others are, too. For crying out loud, Trix, all this is just guesswork on your part.”

  “But I think I’m right.”

  “Maybe you are. In any case, it will keep till tomorrow. We’ll come with you then. We’ve all had enough for one day.”

  “But someone might beat us to it,” Trixie said. “I think some woman was listening when I was telling Honey about it.”

  “And maybe she didn’t hear a thing.” Brian shrugged. “You guys can do as you like, but as soon as we’re through here, I’m going home to sleep for a year.”

  “We have been working hard, Trix,” Jim reminded her, smiling. “Let’s leave it till tomorrow, huh?”

  Dan nodded his agreement.

  Trixie made a face at their backs as they walked away. “I don’t care what the boys say, Honey. I think someone ought to go to Sleepyside Hollow tonight. If no one will come with me, I’m going alone.”

  “Oh, please, don’t!” Honey’s eyes were pleading. “If you wait till tomorrow, we’ll all come. Think of what happened last night. Those woods are haunted, Trixie!”

  “Haunted, my foot!” Trixie reached into her jeans pocket. “I’ve been meaning to show you this.” She pulled out the scrap of black material that she’d found on Mrs. Crandall’s lilac bush.

  Honey rubbed it thoughtfully in her fingers. “Why, Trixie, are you sure this came from the headless horseman’s cloak?”

  “I think so. I found it caught on a twig quite high up from the ground. I had to stand on tiptoe to get it. It was caught at just the right height—if someone was on horseback.”

  “In that case,” Honey said slowly, “the headless horseman is a very modern-thinking ghost. His black cloak, Trixie, is made of polyester!”

  Fifteen minutes later, Trixie and Honey were riding their bikes along the now-familiar path through the woods.

  “I still don’t know how you talked me into this,” Honey remarked, pedaling hard uphill.

  Trixie was pedaling hard beside her. “It was easy,” she answered, panting. “You don’t believe now that the ghost is a ghost. Everyone’s busy, so we’ll never be missed. You don’t like the dark, but right now it’s still light. Our bikes were still in the station wagon. And—” she took a deep breath—“if I’d waited till later, you might have changed your mind about coming with me.”

  “You’re right.” Honey looked fearfully over her shoulder. “If we’d waited till later, you’d have had to drag me here, screaming all the way.” She stopped abruptly. “Trixie! Something’s moving up ahead! What is it?”

  The something crashed forward through the underbrush and hurtled toward them.

  “Honey!” Trixie shouted. “Look out!”

  It was too late. A disheveled animal, his coat matted with burrs, leaped joyfully to greet them. In another instant, the forest path was a tangle of waving legs, spinning bicycle wheels, and a wildly wagging tail.

  The tail belonged to Reddy. The other end of him was busy kissing two of his favorite people.

  “Dumb dog!” Trixie said good-naturedly to him later, when she and Honey had brushed themselves off. “Go home!”

  Reddy pretended he didn’t understand English. He pressed himself lovingly against Trixie’s knee, to show her he was willing to follow her to the ends of the earth.

  Honey picked up her fallen bicycle. “Oh, let’s take him with us, Trix. The silly old thing will keep us company on the way home.”

  “Some company.” Trixie looked down at the cunning canine. “Mart hasn’t taught you a thing, has he? You bad boy!”

  Reddy rolled his eyes at her and tried to look merely misunderstood.

  Trixie sighed. “All right, Reddy. You can come with us. Let’s go!”

  Instantly, Reddy went—back the way the girls had come.

  They watched until his still-wagging tail disappeared around a bend in the trail.

  Honey laughed, and after a moment, Trixie laughed with her.

  “Moms was right,” she said at last, wiping her eyes. “Give that mischievous dog an order, and he does exactly the opposite. I think I’ll let Mart make him into frankfurters after all.”

  It was twilight when the two friends stood once more on the hill above the hollow.

  “If you grip my bike and tell me you’re watching a headless horseman tonight,” Honey announced, “I’m going to faint dead away. You’ve been warned!”

  But Trixie was not watching a phantom. She was watching a bareheaded man riding a yellow bicycle out of the clearing. His back was ramrod straight, his pedaling motions slow but sure. He steadied the handlebars with the tips of dignified fingers. Slanted across his forehead was a white adhesive bandage.

  The man on the yellow bicycle was Harrison.

  He was well out of sight by the time Trixie and Honey arrived at the little house. Rose Crandall had seen them coming, and she met them at the front door.

  “Well, now, and isn’t this nice!” she exclaimed, wiping her hands on her flowered apron. “Three visitors within minutes of each other. And how was the bazaar, my dears?” Trixie told her, then asked, “Was that Harrison we just saw leaving here?”

  “It was indeed.” Mrs. Crandall led the way to the kitchen where her plump look-alike sister was shredding lettuce into a salad bowl.

  “Ah, that naughty man.” Polly Ward shook her head. “At his age, he
should have been content to rest in the hospital a while longer, but he insisted on being discharged. He’s bound and determined he’s going back to work tomorrow.”

  “He just stopped by to pick up the yellow bicycle,” Mrs. Crandall said. “He wanted to look at one of Jonathan’s books, too.” She sighed. “I declare, I don’t know why there’s all this sudden interest in Mother Goose. ”

  Trixie’s fingers dug into Honey’s arm. “Harrison looked at the Mother Goose book? How did he know about it?”

  Polly Ward chuckled as she sliced a fat red tomato. “Is Mother Goose supposed to be a secret? If so, Harrison’s not the only one interested in her. Someone telephoned Rose about that book not ten minutes ago. They wanted to buy it. Can you imagine?”

  “And—and did you sell it to her?” Trixie asked anxiously.

  “Oh, it wasn’t a her,” Mrs. Crandall said. “It was a him. But after all the things he said about my husband, the only thing I’d sell Richard Parkinson would be a one-way ticket out of town.”

  “Is the book still here?” Honey asked. “Could we see it?”

  “Don’t tell us you want to look at ‘Simple Simon,’ too,” Polly Ward said. “My stars, today that rhyme is more popular than the national anthem on the Fourth of July.”

  When Mrs. Crandall handed them the book, Trixie and Honey were bitterly disappointed. There was nothing on the “Simple Simon” page but the nursery rhyme.

  “We—that is, Honey and I—thought we might find out where your birthday present was hidden,” Trixie said. “I was so sure there’d be something here. Mrs. Ward said the clue was: ‘It’s simple.’ ”

  Rose Crandall smiled. “So that’s it! Oh, that Polly! She has a dreadful memory. And she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the clue. We think, you see, that it might give us an idea about the hiding place of—of something else. Not that it has. And maybe it never will now, so I’ll tell you. The real clue, my dears, was ‘It’s elementary.’ ”