The Black Jacket Mystery

by Campbell, Julie

  Brian was standing beside her now, draping a blanket over her shoulders and forcing a cup of broth into her hand. “Drink every bit of it, and then we’ll get on our way back to the horses. We left them at Mr. Maypenny’s because there aren’t any paths.”

  The broth tasted very good and chased away the chill. In a very few minutes, Trixie felt as good as new.

  Brian brought the Thermos to offer her more, but she refused. “I feel great now. Let’s start home. Moms must be simply frantic with worry about Bobby.”

  “She was frantic about both of you!” Brian said very soberly. “She was sure you both had been kidnapped by that tramp that robbed our clubhouse.”

  “The tramp!” Trixie suddenly remembered. “Dan!”

  Dan looked surprised and put down his cup. The others looked questioningly at her, too.

  “Dan!” she exclaimed again. “Tell them what that awful Luke is planning to do! Maybe Regan can get there and stop him before he does it!”

  “What’s all this?” Regan demanded sharply, looking from Trixie to Dan.

  Dan hesitated, scowling. Trixie snapped, “Go on! Don’t forget what he promised to do to you because you wouldn’t help him! It’s not snitching to protect your own self from a person like him!”

  So Dan, in a few words, explained Luke’s intention of breaking into and robbing Manor House.

  When he had concluded, both he and Trixie were surprised to see that neither Regan nor Mr. Belden showed any alarm. Mr. Belden smiled instead and told him, “This Luke will run into big trouble if he tries it. Mr. Wheeler hired extra guards to patrol the Manor House grounds when he came home and found out the clubhouse had been burglarized. Luke will run head on into them if he steps on the Wheeler estate.”

  “Whew! That’s swell!” Trixie beamed. “Just think, Dan, if you had let him talk you into going there with him, you’d have been in trouble for sure!”

  Dan nodded soberly, but he didn’t have to say anything. They all knew how he must feel.

  “Shall we get started for home?” Brian asked, to break the silence. And everyone began to bustle about, putting out the fire, gathering up empty Thermos bottles, and checking to see that they weren’t leaving anything behind. They had no intention of coming back here again for a long, long time.

  “And we re going to forget about Bobby’s lost shoe,” Trixie’s father told her when she suggested she might go into the cave and try to find it. “Mother will put away this one he’s wearing, and he’ll forget all about having lost a shoe here. We don’t want him coming out to look for it!”

  “And I’ll see he’s furnished with a kitten as soon as ever I can find one,” Regan promised gravely. “We want no more expeditions anything like this one of his!”

  “Oh.” Trixie was reminded of the catamount. “Shouldn’t we take along some burning torches,” she asked nervously, “in case that wildcat is still around? He might jump down on one of us from a tree!”

  Regan chuckled and patted the stock of his rifle. “His jumping days are over, Trixie. I got a good sight on him at less than twenty yards’ range, and next time you see him, he’ll be a rug for your room.”

  “I think I’ll let somebody else have him,” Trixie assured her grinning brothers. “I don’t even want to think about that particular kitty again!”

  Bobby lifted his head from his father’s shoulder and blinked around at them. “Where’s the kitty? Can we go find the kitty now?”

  Mr. Belden patted his shoulder and told him soothingly, “The kitty’s run away, skipper. We’ll have to find you another one.”

  Trixie, looking nervously around into the darkness, shivered. “And much smaller this time, please,” she said under her breath.

  And in a few minutes they were all on their way, trudging through the woods toward Mr. Maypenny’s place to explain all that had happened.

  The Carnival • 21

  THE OLD GAMEKEEPER was delighted to see them all come trooping in, Mr. Belden carrying Bobby, and Mart and Brian lending a hand to their tired sister.

  But he was surprised to see Dan Mangan trudging along at Bill Regan s side. “Where’s the other?” he demanded suspiciously. “Where’s the one that took you away?”

  “He’s in the hands of the law by now, Mr. Maypenny,” Peter Belden told the old fellow.

  “Good thing, too. And you’re okay, Dan? I was afraid for you, after what he did to me!” Mr. Maypenny touched the sore spot on his head. “It still hurts.”

  “Everything’s all right now, Mr. Maypenny.” Trixie came up with a wide grin on her face. “And Dan’s going to help us with the carnival, if you can spare him.” She looked at him hopefully.

  “Guess I can,” he said dryly. “Ain’t seen much of him the last couple of days and managed to get along somehow, just the same!”

  “I’d be glad to stay and help all I can here,” Dan told Mr. Maypenny, “but Uncle Bill wants me to go back to the city with him for a day or so and sort of straighten things out with a man there.”

  “Humph! That judge, I suppose.” He peered at Dan over his spectacles. “Well, I’ll give him a letter to show that judge how much we’d like to have you stay on here, and I figure it won’t take you too long to get your business finished with him.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Maypenny,” Dan said with a grin. “I sure hope I can be back Saturday.”

  “We’re counting on it.” Brian came up in time to add his voice.

  A couple of minutes later, when Dan had walked over to the horses with Brian and Mart, Mr. Maypenny hurried over to Bill Regan.

  “What’s this about Dan having to go back to the city now? You’re not thinking of letting them put him in that reform school, are you?”

  Regan looked troubled. “When I went to the city this week, it was to tell the judge that Dan wasn’t doing so well with the folks out here. Things looked pretty bad, you remember. So the judge said he’d issue papers and send the boy away to the school.

  I was supposed to turn him over tomorrow.”

  “Well, you can’t do it now. Call the judge on the phone and tell him it was all a mistake.”

  “I wish I could, but I’m afraid Dan’ll have to go in with me. Maybe when I tell the judge what really happened out here, about this Luke fellow, who used to be head of the street gang, coming here and trying to make Dan help him rob the Wheelers—” A small voice came from behind them. “It’s all my fault everybody thought Dan was the thief,” Trixie said unhappily. “I found some clues, but they weren’t true ones. And I’m awfully sorry.”

  “Forget it, Trixie. It wasn’t your fault. Dan was pretty unfriendly to everybody when he came here. He gave a bad impression,” Regan said honestly.

  “If it would help, maybe Dad would take me to the city so I could tell the judge.”

  Regan smiled. “It won’t be necessary, I hope, Trixie. I think when he’s had a talk with Dan, and I tell him the whole story, he’ll let Dan come back with me. We’ll soon find out.”

  But one day passed and then another, and still Regan didn’t come back with Dan Mangan to tell them that everything would be all right.

  “Just the same,” Honey told Trixie as she sewed busily on a green-and-gold costume for Bobby to wear as the little leprechaun in the ice show, “I’m going right ahead with this. I know everything’s going to be settled in time for Dan to get back.”

  Bobby had been delighted when they had told him what they were planning for him for Saturday. He had even stood still for a whole ten minutes while Honey tried on the half-finished costume. Regan had gilded Bobby’s skate-shoes till they looked like solid gold, and Miss Trask had contributed a wonderful golden feather for his peaked hat.

  And Bobby himself had practiced solemnly on his figure eights and on his final bow. They didn’t dare tell him that there was a chance his friend Dan might not get back.

  The books were piled high in the storeroom at the farm, and practically every ticket had been sold. The prizes, from the toy bear to the s
econdhand lumber, were all on display in the local stores, waiting to be transported to the lake for distribution when they were won. The whole town was joining wholeheartedly in the benefit for the little school library in faraway Mexico.

  Saturday morning came. There was still no word from Regan about Dan. Mr. Wheeler had told Regan to stay on in the city until the case was decided one way or the other, and the boys were doubling as assistant grooms, doing their own regular chores and getting last-minute tasks done before the carnival.

  Honey came rushing into the clubhouse, the finished leprechaun costume over her arm. Her eyes were dancing. “The most wonderful surprise—” she began. But as Trixie looked up excitedly from pinning the clown costume on Mart, Honey clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “Oh!”

  “Ouch!” Mart yelled. “That pin went in an inch!” But Trixie ignored him. “Is Dan back?” she demanded happily.

  Honey shook her head. “Not that I know of. It’s something else, but I promised not to tell you.” Mart groaned. “Here we go again! Hurry up and let me out of here, so you can tell her!”

  “I don’t intend to! It’s too elegant a secret to tell anybody. It would spoil it!”

  Mart peeled off the almost-finished costume. “Can’t hang around to hear it, but I bet it’s a world-shaker!” And he grabbed up his jacket and marched out.

  Honey giggled. “I know another secret, too. Mart’s new jacket is almost finished. I nearly brought it along to show you just now. I didn’t know he was here!”

  “We’ll give it to him after the show—an extra prize, we’ll tell him, for winning us the lumber for our floor here!” Trixie loved surprising people.

  Honey danced around the room, throwing a lace mantilla around her shoulders and draping it over her head. “I adore my costume! Don’t you love yours?”

  Trixie nodded. “Only I feel sort of silly with my blond mop and a high comb tied on with a string so I’ll look like a señorita!” She grimaced at herself in the mirror as she perched a tall comb on top of her head and it fell down on her nose. “Hope it doesn’t blow right off my head when were doing our fast spins!” She set it straight again and did a twirl.

  In her dungarees, wool sweater, and sneakers, and with the comb tilting precariously over all, she made a funny picture, even to Honey, who was her most enthusiastic admirer. “Oh, Trixie, you’re a card!” she giggled.

  “If that’s Spanish, I’ll take vanilla!” a voice remarked from the doorway. Brian and Mart both had their heads stuck in, but as usual it was Mart who spoke. “Hey, did she spill that secret yet?” he went on.

  “Indeed, I did not!” Honey laughed. “So don’t come sneaking in hoping to hear anything. You’ll all have to wait till tonight. That’s final!”

  Mart groaned. “Cruel wench! Just for that, we won’t tell you who’s down on the lake, practicing like mad!”

  “Dan!” Trixie shouted. “Is it Dan, Brian?”

  “None other, my sweet!” Brian laughed. “Regan cleared up the whole thing for him, thanks to the letters from Mr. Wheeler and Mr. Maypenny. Dan’s one of us.”

  “Hey, that’s swell!” Trixie rejoiced.

  “Too bad be couldn’t be a Bob-White, but I guess he’s too sophi—sophi—” Trixie had bogged down, as usual. “Whatever it is.”

  “Pretty close, toots,” Mart told her with a grin. “The word is sophisticated, only it doesn’t really fit Dan. I know he’s panting to join us, even though he kidded our club when he first came to Sleepyside.”

  “Should we have a conference meeting and vote on inviting him?” Trixie asked eagerly. “This noon?”

  “I’ve got two votes here,” Mart said, pointing to himself and Brian, “and you two. And Jim will go along. That just leaves Di, and she always votes the way you two do. So why waste time conferring when we’ve got so much work to do getting ready for tonight at the lake?”

  “Okay,” said Madam President Trixie. “He’s in! And we’ll tell him tonight.” She looked thoughtful suddenly. “Gleeps! Honey’ll have to fix up another jacket.”

  “Say, mine’s too small, anyhow. I can let him have it till Honey gets around to making me one that fits. Would you, will you, Honey?” Mart was sensitive about his wrists hanging out two inches from the jacket sleeves.

  “Well...Honey winked aside at Trixie and pretended to look doubtful. “I suppose I could—somehow or other.”

  But Mart still wanted Dan to have the jacket, even though he himself might have to get along without one for some time. “We can t have him seen around in that black leather jacket, once he joins the B.W.G.’s,” he said soberly.

  “Yes!” Trixie nodded. “It was his black leather jacket that set me against him from the first, and lots of other people might feel the same way, because so many tough characters wear them.”

  “Well, at least we know some guys in black leather jackets can turn out okay even if they’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” Mart admitted.

  “And we know some others, like that Luke character, that don’t have much chance of changing. And that reminds me, Mr. Lytell saw him at the Sleepyside jail when the guards from the Wheeler place brought him in, and he identified Luke as the one who sold him Honey’s watch. So Dan didn’t do that, after all, any more than he broke into the clubhouse that other time.”

  “Well, it’s all past now, and I’m glad.” Honey smiled.

  “Now how about that big secret?” Mart teased.

  But Honey shook her head firmly. “Not till tonight!” And she stuck to that.

  It was a beautiful night. Besides the moonlight that bathed the frozen lake in soft blue light, there were lanterns strung everywhere, and just enough breeze to keep them swinging gently.

  Jim had rigged up a microphone, and when Dan recited the piece about the little leprechaun and Bobby dashed around in his costume pretending to be that fairy shoemaker, the Sleepyside crowd applauded till their hands hurt.

  Then it was Trixie and Honey’s turn to glide about the ice, as twin señoritas from sunny Mexico, while a phonograph record attached to Jim’s speaker system played “La Paloma.”

  And then the speed-skating competition began, and the boys from Sleepyside lined up against the boys from Round Point High.

  Mart had been wearing his clown outfit all evening, acting as general funnyman and master of ceremonies. He wanted to get into the race most of all, because the prize was the flooring from the antique saltbox house.

  “Gosh, hope I have time to change and get into the senior dash,” he confided to Trixie, but the bunting on the souvenir booth had blown loose, and he had to get a hammer and tacks and go to work on it.

  He finished it just before the senior group lined up to race, and there was no time to change.

  “All ready?” boomed Jim’s voice.

  And Mart made a mad dash to join the skaters. But the wide ruff around his neck blew up and got in front of his face before he ever got to the lineup. He didn’t see the twig half-embedded in the ice, and he went sprawling.

  It was a hard fall that he took, and he lay there for a full minute, trying to shake his brain clear.

  No one had noticed Mart’s fall, and before he could scramble to his feet the starter’s gun had barked and the race was on. He stood, dismayed, watching them speed past in a circuit of the lake, while the crowd cheered.

  Around they went the second time, and now Mart heard Trixie yell, “Dan!” and saw that Dan was well in the lead. He promptly forgot his own skinned knee and tom clown outfit as he joined his own voice to the yelling and shrieking.

  And it was Dan who came in first!

  And it was Dan who received the lumber company’s order for the historic flooring. He promptly turned it over to Jim and Trixie, as the co-presidents of the Bob-Whites.

  But the biggest excitement was yet to come. There was a loud fanfare as the chatter and applause for Dan died down, and the hi-fi blared out the Mexican national anthem. A big searchlight that had stood draped in t
he background was ran up quickly and tinned onto two seats which had been unaccountably empty.

  They were occupied now by two very scared, but very pretty, señoritas, dark-haired and big-eyed. They rose and bowed timidly as Jim announced on the public address system that the special guests were the Señoritas Lopez from San Isidro, Mexico, respectively Dolores and Lupe. It was for the benefit of their school library there that the carnival was being held, Jim announced, and now that the entertainment was almost over, the young ladies from Mexico would be glad to say hello to their friends.

  It was a happy ending to a gay event as the boys and girls gathered around the señoritas to shake their hands and listen, entranced, to their shy conversation. Obviously, the señoritas were pleased.

  “So that was the secret!” Trixie exclaimed as she and Honey dashed over to join the crowd.

  Honey nodded, her eyes starry. “They’re staying at our house. Dad and Mom made their trip just special to surprise us by bringing the girls back. It took some managing, but Dad did it! And we’ve been invited to visit them in Mexico.”

  “Jeeps!” Trixie was overcome. “Mexico!” And she hugged Honey in delight.

  But that was to come later. Right now everyone was getting out onto the ice to skate, and the smell of good food was being wafted over the ice, so Trixie and Honey hurried to join Lupe and Dolores.

  They were a minute too late. Jim had Dolores and Brian had Lupe, on proud right arms, and the two couples were skating out onto the ice to join the rest of the happy crowd.

  “Well, what do you know about that?” Trixie asked her best friend.

  Honey giggled. “I know we won’t be taking that trip to Mexico without our brothers, for one thing.

  And for another, I was just wondering if Lupe and Dolores have brothers at home who are as good-looking as they are themselves?”

  “Probably not.” Trixie grinned. “But I bet it will be lots of fun! Let’s go find Dan and Mart and do some skating ourselves!”