The Mystery on Cobbett's Island

by Kathryn Kenny

  Honey hurriedly stepped into the full skirt which came to her ankles. The top fitted perfectly, too. She twirled around the attic, making the skirt billow out about her.

  “Oh, it’s just perfect, Honey,” said Di. “I hope Trix and I have as good luck. Come on, let’s keep looking.”

  They reached the bottom of the trunk, however, without finding anything that seemed in good enough condition to wear, so they quickly moved on to the next one which, to their great disappointment, held nothing but old books and papers.

  “They’re probably fascinating, but they’re not what we’re after right now. Well, here goes the third one,” said Trixie as she started to lift the cover. “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  Luck was with them, for this trunk, like the first, was filled with dresses. “There must have been an awful lot of women in this family,” Di said as she lifted out a lovely ashes-of-roses dress. “This may fit, but the waist looks pretty snug. I’ll have to hold my breath and not eat any cookies, or I’ll burst a seam!”

  “You burst a seam! What about me?” cried Trixie. “I know I couldn’t get into any of these. I’m sure I’ve gained five pounds since I came down here.”

  “Don’t be silly,” answered Honey. “Your figure’s perfect and your waist is inches smaller than it was last summer.”

  Di, who had been rummaging through the trunk as the other two were talking, pulled out a challis dress that was just the color of a ripe pumpkin.

  “How perfectly darling!” cried Honey. “Trix, this just has to fit you. Hurry and try it on.”

  Trixie lost no time getting into the bright little dress. This one, unlike the others, buttoned down the back, so she asked Honey to help her.

  “Come on over to the window so I can see what I’m doing,” Honey said. “These little loops are so tiny, I’m having trouble.” She led Trixie over to one of the attic windows which looked out over the backyard. While Honey was struggling with the buttons, Trixie glanced outside. She suddenly started to yell but caught herself, and, clapping one hand over her mouth, with the other pointed in the direction of the tool shed.

  Di hurried over just in time to see what had upset Trixie. All three saw someone running into the woods, and that someone was wearing a black jacket!

  “I’ll bet it’s one of those two in the yellow boat!” Trixie cried. “Come on. Let’s get him!”

  They started to run out but realized all too soon that they were hopelessly encumbered by their long skirts. “It’s no use,” Trixie moaned. “He’d be miles away by the time we even got downstairs with these things on, and the boys are too far away to hear us even if we did whistle for them. Besides,” she added, “we’d never hear the last of it if we had to ask them for help at this point.”

  “What in the world do you suppose he was doing around here?” asked Di, still peering out of the window.

  “I can’t imagine, but I have a sneaking suspicion he’s been here before, and it could be he’s one of the two who spent the night in the loft,” Trixie answered.

  “What do you suppose happened to the other one?” Honey asked. “Of course, there could have been two running into the woods, and we just saw one of them.”

  “Help me out of this thing,” Trixie cried, trying to wriggle out of her dress. “You know if I hadn’t had that brilliant idea about dressing up, we might have been able to catch him, or at least trail him. I always did say skirts were an awful nuisance.”

  “Oh, don’t blame yourself, Trixie,” Honey consoled her. “He probably thinks no one saw him, so he may come back. After all, we don’t know he was up to anything.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Trixie conceded, “and I suppose we ought to tell the boys, so they’ll be on the lookout, too, but let’s not say anything about it to Peter’s mother. As Honey says, we don’t know he was doing anything wrong, and it might upset her with the party on her mind and Mr. Kimball away and all.”

  After they had dressed in their own clothes, the girls carefully repacked the things they were not going to use and closed the trunks. As they were about to go downstairs, Mrs. Kimball called to ask if they had had any luck.

  “We’re on our way down now,” Trixie answered. “We’ll show you.”

  Mrs. Kimball was delighted when she saw what they had found. At her suggestion, they left the dresses in the guest room until it was time to get ready. Then they hurried toward the gazebo where they could hear the boys hammering away.

  “It looks absolutely super!” Trixie called out as they approached.

  “Look, they’ve even fixed the weather vane,” cried Di, pointing to the little ship which was moving in the light breeze.

  “And the floor is as good as new,” Honey added as she jumped up and down to test it.

  “Now, if you’re about finished, we have news for you,” said Trixie as she sat down on one of the benches. “Guess what?”

  “Trixie’s found the mon-ey! Trixie’s found the mon-ey!” chanted Mart, clapping his hands.

  “Oh, stop acting like an idiot!” Trixie said fiercely. “I’m serious. Someone’s been lurking around here this morning and we saw him take off through the woods back of the tool shed just a few minutes ago, and he was wearing—”

  “A black jacket, I’ll bet,” said Brian.

  “Right, but he was too far away for us to tell what he looked like. All we could see was his back, and that he was sort of tall.”

  “Why didn’t you follow him, Trix? I never knew you to pass up a chance to follow a hot lead before,” quipped Mart with a grin.

  “We were up in the attic when we saw him, that’s why,” Honey answered. “So don’t blame Trixie, Mart Belden. You know she would have trailed him if she could.”

  “In the attic!” cried Brian. “For Pete’s sake, what were you doing up there?”

  “Oh, I had an idea that if we wore old-fashioned costumes this afternoon it might be kind of an added attraction,” Trixie explained, “and Mrs. Kimball let us look up there in those old trunks.”

  “Did you have any luck, or did the mysterious stranger interrupt you?” Mart persisted.

  “You’ll just have to wait and see,” Honey replied.

  “Okay, but you’re not the only ones with a secret,” Jim said, “so you’ll have to ‘wait and see,’ too.”

  The girls tried unsuccessfully to wheedle Jim into telling them what he meant, but he only said, “ ‘What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!’ Now we’d better get back to the house and let them know that the gazebo is fixed.”

  “We’ll go and tell Mrs. Kimball while you take the tools back,” volunteered Trixie, “and then I want to have a look around the shed and see if there are any signs anyone has been fooling around out there.”

  The girls ran back to the house and then hurried to the shed, arriving there just as Jim was hanging up the last of the tools.

  “I can’t see that anything is missing,” said Peter, giving a cursory glance around the room, “but maybe your eagle eyes will find some clues.”

  Trixie went upstairs but returned almost immediately. “Everything’s just the way we left it up there,” she announced. “Now let’s see. No cigarette butts down here, no footprints, no—Hey, wait a minute!” she cried as her eyes swept around the walls. “No calendar! Pete, did you take it into the house?”

  “By Jove, I didn’t. After I made the copy of the map, I left it right here on the workbench, and I’m pretty sure it was here this morning,” he answered as he looked under the bench and around the room.

  “Could it have blown away?” asked Di, looking outside the door.

  “Not a chance. The calendar had a heavy metal binder, and there hasn’t been more than a light breeze blowing all day,” Peter replied thoughtfully, scratching his head in puzzlement.

  “No, someone took it!” Trixie said fiercely. “And I’m afraid our secret is out of the bag. If we’re being spied on, we’ll all have to make a special effort to act as though nothing has happen
ed. And we’ll have to keep our eyes and ears open.”

  Chapter 13

  Teacups and Sailboats

  During lunch Trixie seemed unusually quiet despite Jim’s efforts to draw her into the conversation. “What’s on your mind, Trix?” he asked as she continued to toy with her food.

  “Oh, I don’t know. It all seems so kind of hopeless,” she answered. “Honey and I had better think twice about being detectives, if we can’t do any better than this.”

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Honey reassured her. “We’ve often lost the trail before, but something always turns up to steer us back on the right road.”

  “You know you have the full cooperation of all the B.W.G.’s, plus Peter, and our esprit de corps has never been higher,” added Mart earnestly, seeming to realize that this was no time to tease his sister.

  “Thanks, Mart,” Trixie answered warmly. “You’re all truly wonderful, honest you are.”

  “Let’s not think about it any more right now,” Diana suggested, feeling that time was the only thing that could ease the situation.

  “You’re right, Di. We’ll enjoy the party and just hope for the best,” Honey agreed.

  “I intend to have a good time, too, but I’m still going to keep thinking, for goodness’ sake!” Trixie impatiently pushed her chair away from the table and started upstairs. Honey and Di followed, concerned about Trixie’s black mood.

  “She’ll snap out of it,” Honey whispered to Di. “I’ve never known her to be glum very long.”

  After they had bathed and dressed, they combed their hair, and slipping into their black flats, they hurried over to the Oldest House to change into their costumes. The boys had gone on ahead to help carry out tables and chairs to the garden. Everyone was in a bustle of excitement when the girls arrived.

  “My committee says practically everyone on the island is coming,” Mrs. Kimball said, after she had greeted them. “Peter says the boys are going to help him park the cars down in the lower field. Trixie, will you sit out on the porch and sell the tickets for us?”

  “Anything you say, Mrs. Kimball,” said Trixie cheerfully, the old sparkle coming back into her eyes.

  “Di and Honey, I’d like you to direct the guests out to our gazebo for tea, and tell them to feel free to look through the gardens,” Mrs. Kimball continued. “The roses are at their best right now. By the way, have you all seen the gazebo since we set up the tea things? It turned out better than I imagined it could!”

  “Let’s go take a look, and then we’d better get into our dresses before we get caught by an early arrival,” suggested Honey.

  “Jeepers!” exclaimed Trixie as they approached the gazebo. “It doesn’t look like the same place at all. How perfectly darling!”

  “The committee must have worked awfully hard to get it decorated in such a short time. Look at the festoons of greens around the columns. You’d never know the paint was peeling,” said Honey.

  “What’s that on the table?” asked Di as she went inside.

  “That must be what the boys meant when they said they had a surprise,” said Trixie.

  On the table, in front of a beautiful arrangement of flowers, was a model of a colonial building. A sign on it read: MODEL OF THE PROPOSED COBBETT’S ISLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY. Just then, Mrs. Kimball came in carrying a tray of silver and explained that Peter had started the model in school but had not had time to complete it. With the help of Jim and the others it had been finished this morning.

  “I thought they were taking a long time to fix a couple of boards and a broken pillar,” Trixie said, “but they certainly kept this a deep dark secret.”

  “It took a bit of doing, but they managed to smuggle it out of Peter’s room without you girls suspecting a thing.” Mrs. Kimball laughed.

  It didn’t take the girls long to dress, and they were ready on the porch as the first guests walked up from the parking lot. More and more people followed and Trixie had to work fast to see that everyone had a ticket and the proper change. Honey and Di, after escorting a party to the gazebo, would run back to the house as fast as their long skirts would permit, to greet another group. The line seemed endless. Mrs. Kimball saw that extra cookies and cakes were taken out as supplies became depleted. She seemed able to be in several places at once to see that everything was going smoothly.

  By five o’clock the last guest had departed, the committee had finished cleaning up, and Mrs. Kimball, looking tired but happy, joined the Bob-Whites and Peter on the porch. Jim, noticing that Trixie was counting the money, asked, “What’s the take, Trix? By the number of cars we handled this afternoon, we must have made a fortune.”

  “Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen,” Trixie counted out loud. “Two hundred and fifteen dollars!” she exclaimed. “Wow!”

  “Wow, indeed,” Mrs. Kimball laughingly repeated. “And that’s all free and clear because the food was donated. How can I ever thank all of you Bob-Whites for your help?”

  “ ‘He is well paid who is well satisfied,’ as Mr. Shakespeare once put it,” Jim replied.

  “We certainly don’t need any thanks,” Trixie added. “Jim’s right. The whole thing has really been fun.”

  “Besides the money we made, the party helped publicize the Library Fund,” Mrs. Kimball went on. “Several people told me they hadn’t been especially interested in the building until they saw the model. Now they intend to make a substantial donation. Now tell me, what have you planned for tomorrow? You deserve a day of rest after the way you’ve worked.”

  Trixie, not wanting to divulge their plan of further work on the chart, told her they’d probably spend the day on the beach or looking around the island.

  “And we must go and call on El. We’ve neglected him since his accident,” Jim added.

  The Bob-Whites had been so busy at the tea that even Mart hadn’t found time to eat any of the delicious cakes or cookies, so by dinnertime they were all starved. Since Miss Trask hadn’t known what time they would be home from the party, she had suggested that the cook prepare a cold supper for them. A large bowl of potato salad, assorted sliced meats, coleslaw, and dessert were waiting for them on the buffet.

  “Let’s take trays out on the porch,” suggested Honey when they had all served themselves. “It’ll soon be time for the sunset, and it should be another beauty.”

  As they ate, they watched the sky in the west change from a purple-blue to rose, orange, and red as the sun sank behind the yacht club across the bay. They discussed the party at length and found that, although they had all been on the lookout for strange visitors, no one had seen anything suspicious.

  Just as they were finishing, they saw Peter loping down the road toward The Moorings. “Hi, neighbors. Long time no see,” he called out as he came up the porch steps, two at a time.

  “No, it’s been ages,” Trixie answered. “All of two hours!”

  “What brings you to the hallowed halls of Wheeler?” Mart asked as he passed the orange cake to Peter.

  “Well, I hate to admit it, but I’m in a jam,” Peter answered, flinging himself into a wicker chaise lounge. “I need help.”

  “Gleeps, Peter, you sound desperate. What’s up? You know you can count on us,” Trixie said.

  “Oh, it’s not a matter of life and death, so relax,” he told them, smiling, “but I got a phone call just now from Brad Cummings. He and his brother are my regular crew. He told me they can’t get down here until next week because he has to take some kind of exam for college, and the tune-up races are tomorrow morning.”

  “You don’t mean you want us to go?” Trixie asked. “We’ve only been out that once with you. We couldn’t possibly be any good in a regular race.”

  “In the first place, it isn’t a regular race, so simmer down,” he told her. “It’s just a warmer-upper, and besides, from what Cap tells me and what I saw the other day, all of you acted like able-bodied seamen, even if you are new hands.”

  Everyone expressed his willingness to help out
and Jim and Trixie were finally delegated to go with Peter.

  “Trixie, you can handle the spinnaker, because you’re lighter than Jim and won’t upset the balance of the boat so much when you have to go forward to set the sail.” Peter was full of enthusiasm, but Trixie was still quite apprehensive.

  “The spinnaker! I’ve never even seen one outside a sail bag, let alone put one up. I’d simply die if I didn’t do it right,” she moaned.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Peter said reassuringly. “We’ll go over to my house, and I’ll show you a book that describes the whole operation. It’s really not that difficult.”

  “May the rest of us come along, too?” Brian asked. “We might as well learn the tricks of the trade while we have a chance.”

  “Sure thing,” Peter replied. “The more the merrier, and we can look at some movies Dad took of some of the races last summer.”

  After taking their trays inside, they headed for Peter’s house, and by the end of the evening, Trixie felt a little more confident. As they were walking back to The Moorings, Jim gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Don’t worry, Trix, you can do anything you put your mind to. You know I think you’re super!” he said.

  For once in her life, Trixie was speechless! Her heart was racing. She thought, I’ve just got to do it, not only to help Peter, but for Jim.

  That night, although she went right to sleep, her rest was interrupted by a long series of dreams in which Star Fire capsized because she stupidly hauled on the wrong line, or came in last with everyone laughing at her vain attempts to hoist the spinnaker. But when dawn finally arrived, she felt less panicky and firmly resolved to keep her fears to herself.

  Peter had proposed that they get to the club early so they could go out for a practice sail before race time. So he picked up Trixie and Jim who had grabbed some breakfast on the run, leaving the other Bob-Whites to come down later.

  Peter looked up at the cloud-littered sky and remarked, “We’ve got a good breeze today, but it’s a little out of the west, and the west wind is fickle.”