“I wonder why we didn’t see the ship when we first arrived this afternoon,” Honey said, frowning. “I remember looking at the river, but I didn’t see a galleon.”
“Ah,” Gaston said, “but what trouble Monsieur Trask takes to make sure that you did not. The ship, she is towed around a headland yesterday to put her in hiding. At dusk today, she is towed back.”
Honey gasped. “Was that why all the kitchen staff was outside when Trixie got stuck in the dumbwaiter?”
“There are times,” Gaston said, “when even grown men like to see the spectacle. Even I had to see the tall ship coming home. But enough! I myself will show you again how beautiful she is. I think the fog, she is lifting a little. I will stay here. Then—click, click—I will work the lights. After this is done, you will both go quickly up the stairs to get the sleep of beauty. I know this is important for growing young ladies.”
“I wonder if we ought to wake up the others?” Trixie said. “The boys would sure like to explore the ship, I know.”
“But this is not possible,” Gaston answered “You will kindly remember that much work is being done on board. You will look only.”
“Gosh,” Honey said as she and Trixie hurried toward the edge of the cliff, “he really seemed worried about us. I sure hope he doesn’t pack up and ‘leave Pirate’s Inn forever.’ ”
“Maybe Weasel was right,” Trixie answered. “Perhaps he does have a quick temper and just needed time to cool down. He certainly seems in a good mood now.”
They were both moving carefully when they came close to the place where they had seen the ghostly ship appear before.
The fog did seem to be lifting a little, but although they glanced up several times at the tall trees around them, they still couldn’t see the spotlights Gaston had assured them were there.
“I don’t know how Mart saw them in the first place,” Trixie muttered. “He must have eyes like a cat. And wait till I tell him we weren’t imagining things, after all.”
“Too many Maiden’s Delights, indeed!” Honey said, grinning.
All at once, the path in front of them seemed suddenly brighter. When the two girls looked at the river, there was the galleon, gleaming in the water.
The tall masts and the shimmering deck stood out against the night sky. Trixie saw the flag of the Jolly Roger, which, she thought, was probably lit by a special small spotlight of its own.
She saw the wooden figure that stood proudly against its bow. She looked for the happy smile that had so pleased her before.
The smile was still there—but so was something else.
To Trixie’s astonishment, sorrowful tears appeared to be trickling down the painted face.
“Oh, Honey!” Trixie gasped. “It doesn’t seem possible, but the lady’s crying!”
Clues to a Treasure • 13
LATER, TRIXIE could imagine Gaston standing by the light switches muttering to himself, “Click, click—ah, what a mystification!—here is the ship. Click, click—poof!—the ship, she is gone.” True to his word, and while the girls watched, he made the galleon appear and disappear once, twice, three times.
Then, just before the ship vanished for the last time, Honey asked, “Trix? What’s that?”
Trixie was still puzzling over the strange sight of the crying figurehead. But she tore her gaze away from the river and followed Honey’s pointing finger.
She drew in her breath sharply, for what she saw on the grass where they were standing were the faint outlines of glowing footprints. They seemed to march toward the inn. In the next second, as Gaston turned off the lights, the footprints, too, vanished into the mist.
“What on earth were they?” Honey asked.
“I can think of a better question,” Trixie answered. “Who or what made them?”
She still hadn’t made up her mind when they joined Gaston at the inn’s front door.
“The ship, she is truly astonishing, yes?” he remarked, firmly ushering them inside. “And now goodnight, mesamies. In the morning, Monsieur Trask, he will have returned, and all will be well.”
“It’s funny how everyone is so certain that Mr. Trask will come back tomorrow,” Trixie said, watching him hurry away. “I only hope everyone’s right!”
She glanced quickly around her, but she could see no one, not even the owner of the ghostly footprints. Who had made them?
The Weasel, too, was nowhere in sight. Trixie found herself hoping that he’d gone to bed. She didn’t trust him at all. She had the feeling he was playing some strange game of his own.
The dining room was dark and deserted, but the tables, or what she could see of them, had been neatly set for breakfast. The inn seemed to be functioning well, even in the absence of its owner.
Trixie couldn’t help feeling a bit guilty as she moved toward the office door. She knew that Gaston had assumed that she and Honey were going straight upstairs.
It had been kind of him to solve the mystery of the vanishing galleon. On the other hand, there were still many questions left unanswered. She was sure, however, that the next few minutes would answer at least one of them.
“We’ll make a real quick search until we find the missing money,” she told Honey, “then we’ll go to bed, okay?”
Honey was staring fearfully over her shoulder. “I keep on getting this funny feeling we’re being watched,” she said. “Oh, Trixie, suppose it’s the same person who sent you that warning note.” Trixie swung around to face the stairs. She was just in time to see two shadows slowly descending. Then she heard familiar voices muttering, “Six, seven, eight—”
“Brian? Mart?” Trixie called, astonished. The shadows stopped.
“Trix, is that you?” Mart’s voice said. In the next moment, he had run the rest of the way and was facing her. He was fully dressed in jeans, shirt, and Bob-White jacket, as was Brian, who quickly joined them. The four stood staring at each other.
“What are you doing here?” Trixie demanded. “We were about to ask you the same thing,” Brian said. “We thought you’d gone to bed.”
“We thought you did, too,” Honey said quickly. “But wait till you hear what’s happened. Trixie found out that we weren’t seeing things after all. We really did see a galleon.”
The boys listened as she told them all about it. When she had finished, Brian said sternly, “I thought it was agreed that you wouldn’t go wandering off without us, Trix.”
“No more clandestine adventures unless we were with you,” Mart added. “Though I must say, the spectral vessel does sound devastatingly tempting. If I didn’t have something far more important to do, I might be persuaded to sashay up the gangplanks right now.”
“You can’t,” Trixie said. “It’s dangerous. No one’s allowed on board. Gaston said so.”
“I still don’t understand why you two came down here in the first place,” Brian said, looking from one to the other of them. “You weren’t dumb enough to go looking for more secret passages, were you?”
Trixie’s cheeks were crimson as she told her brothers how convinced she was that the missing money was in the office. Now that she was explaining her theory, she could tell how weak it sounded. It was based on nothing but a hunch.
“Well, the money isn’t there,” Brian told her flatly. “Miss Trask searched for it, and later, so did Di and Dan. I’m beginning to think there isn’t any to be found.”
Trixie’s face fell. “I was so sure—”
“Why don’t you two go to bed,” Mart said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
Something in his voice made Trixie instantly suspicious. “You’ve been so busy asking us questions,” she retorted, “that you still haven’t told us how come you’re down here, too.”
“Why, Trixie,” Honey exclaimed, watching their faces, “you’re right! They’re up to something, as sure as my name’s Honey Wheeler. Okay, you two—confess.”
Reluctantly, Mart pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it. “I found this tucked away in
a secret drawer in the desk in our room,” he said. “I’ll bet it’s been there for years. Brian and I were just going to see what we could find, that’s all.”
When Trixie took the yellowed paper from his hand, she could see that it was covered with spidery handwriting. The ink looked faded, as if it had been written long ago.
Astonished, Trixie read aloud:
“Thirteen paces down the stair,
Then through the door—
Soon you’ll be there,
Where fortune waits upon the shore,
Inside a cave, upon the floor.
Beware of ghosts who guard the place
With knife and cutlass, gun and mace.
Faint heart ne’er did a rich man make,
But gold is there for you to take.
If you can find the pirate’s lair,
Then you have won a treasure rare.”
Honey had been reading over Trixie’s shoulder. “A treasure?” she gasped, her eyes wide. “You found clues to a treasure?”
“And you were going looking for it without telling us?” Trixie glared at her brothers.
Mart shuffled his feet. “We thought you were asleep,” he mumbled. “Besides, it might not be anything at all.”
“But it’s as good as a treasure map,” Trixie cried.
“All right,” Brian said, sighing, “you can come with us if you want to.”
Honey hesitated. “Shouldn’t we wake up Di and Dan and Jim?”
“We were wondering when someone would remember us,” Jim’s voice said. In another moment, Jim, Di, and Dan appeared, and the seven Bob-Whites were crowded in the little lobby, grinning at each other.
Dan said, “All we could hear were whispers and footsteps—”
“And doors opening and closing,” Di added. “So we got up to find out where everyone was. What’s going on, anyway?”
For the second time that evening, Honey told them about the galleon; then Mart related the story of his discovery. When he showed everyone the paper, each Bob-White had several questions to ask.
At last, Jim repeated thoughtfully, “ ‘Thirteen paces down the stair....’ Does it mean these stairs?”
“I think so,” Brian answered. “I counted them automatically when we first went upstairs this afternoon. There are exactly thirteen of them.“
“And ‘Then through the door—soon you’ll be there .. ” Mart quoted, moving forward. “That must mean this door. Onward, me hearties! This way to the treasure!”
Honey sighed as she found herself once more on what she considered to be the wrong side of the door—the outside.
“Do you really think that we’ll find treasure, Trix?” she asked, pushing her feet through the damp leaves that lay on the driveway.
“Where there were pirates, there was often treasure,” Trixie pointed out. “I know that lots of it was never found. They’ve never discovered where Captain Kidd hid his gold, remember. Maybe Captain Trask had a secret hiding place, too.”
“Did anyone bring a flashlight?” Jim asked, trying to peer through the fog.
A bright beam of light from Mart’s hand answered his question.
“Over here,” Mart called, leading the way across the grass. “Watch your step, everyone.”
“What’s the next part of the verse?” Dan asked as the rest of them caught up to Mart.
Mart shone the light onto the paper. “ ‘Inside a cave, upon the floor.’ I sure hope there’s an easy way of getting down to the beach—”
He broke off as his wavering beam unexpectedly spotlighted two figures who had appeared through the mist in front of him.
Trixie peered at them and then couldn’t believe her eyes. Two men appeared to be locked in mortal combat!
She recognized the slight build of one of them at once. It was Mr. Appleton! She could hear him panting as he struggled furiously with his darkhaired opponent. She gasped as she realized that they were dangerously close to the cliff’s edge.
“Hold on!” Brian shouted.
“We’re coming!” Jim cried, racing forward.
Mr. Appleton turned a startled face toward them as the four boys rushed to the rescue.
But, as Trixie watched, horrified, Mr. Appleton’s opponent appeared to stagger.
Before anyone could reach him, he toppled slowly forward, then plummeted straight to the beach far below.
The Cave ● 14
FOR A MOMENT, the Bob-Whites were too shocked even to move.
Then Mr. Appleton said mildly, “It wasn’t your fault, you know. I shouldn’t have let go of him. Poor old Clarence! I hope he’s not damaged.” He moved to the edge and peered into the mist below.
“Clarence?” Mart sounded incredulous. “You— you mean that was just your dummy?”
’‘But we saw you struggling with him,” Brian said, “and we thought—”
Mr. Appleton looked embarrassed as the girls hurried to join them.
“I—er—that is, Clarence and I were taking a stroll,” he said.
“It didn’t look like a stroll to us,” Trixie pointed out. “We thought you were fighting with someone.”
There was silence as the Bob-Whites realized they had only Mr. Appleton’s word for it that it was Clarence who had fallen over the cliff.
Mr. Appleton sighed. “I suppose I’d better tell you the truth.” He paused and seemed to be thinking hard. “The fact is, my hobby is wrestling, and I use Clarence in my workouts. He helps me keep in shape.” He peered over the edge once more. “I can’t see a sign of him. I’ll have to leave him there until this fog clears off. Well, good night to you. Thanks for trying to help. I suppose the two of us did look kind of peculiar, at that.” And with a friendly wave of the hand, he turned away and strolled back toward the inn.
“Wrestling, indeed!” Trixie exclaimed, when he was out of earshot. “Wrestlers have muscles. Even I have more than he has! I don’t believe he was telling us the truth.”
“Then what do you suppose he was up to?” Honey asked.
Brian frowned. “Aw, come on, Trix. I think you’re being too suspicious. His story sounded just peculiar enough to be true.”
“At least we can find out about the dummy,” Mart said. “If my calculations are correct, we need to go down there, anyway.”
Slowly, carefully, the Bob-Whites searched for a path to take them to the beach. It wasn’t long before they discovered a flight of wooden steps. Although they appeared to be old, they were in surprisingly good condition.
“If I’d known about these before,” Trixie told Honey, following the others, “I’d have been able to solve the mystery of the vanishing ship all by myself.”
“We didn’t have Mart’s flashlight to guide us before,” Honey pointed out sensibly.
Trixie had to admit that the journey down the cliff might have been far more difficult in the fog without the beam of light to guide them. As it was, she was soon standing safely on the tiny beach at the bottom.
Her eyes were gradually becoming accustomed to her surroundings. Beneath her feet were small pebbles that littered the shore. To her right, a long wooden jetty, with signs forbidding anyone to enter, extended into the water. At the end of it, a dark mass floated gently in the current.
“It’s the galleon!” Trixie told the others in hushed tones. “I wish we could see it better.”
As if in answer to her wish, the mist lifted momentarily, and for the first time without the aid of special lights, Trixie gazed on the ship as it stood at anchor.
What a magnificent sight it was! Although it no longer glowed, Trixie thought she had never seen anything more beautiful. Immediately, her eyes searched for and found the figure at its bow.
Honey must have done so, too. She took a step forward and then frowned and said slowly, “That’s funny, Trix. I thought you said the lady had tears running down her face. I can’t see anything like that at all.”
Trixie could see that Honey was right. “That is funny,” she said. “I wonder how I made s
uch a dumb mistake.”
She was still thinking about it when Mart shouted, “I’ve found the body!” A cold hand seemed to clutch at Trixie’s heart until he added, “It is Clarence, and he seems to be fine.”
Trixie grinned when she saw Mart hurrying toward them. He was carrying Clarence over his shoulder, fireman-style. He was also carrying his flashlight in one hand, and something else in the other.
“It’s Clarence’s arm,” Mart explained, waving it in the air. “It fell off. His nose is slightly bent out of shape, and his wig is coming unglued on one side. But other than that, he’s great, aren’t you, Clarence, old boy?”
“I’b dot gread ad all,” a gruff voice said crossly. “By dose hurts. Yours would, doo, if you’d bupped id od a rock.”
“Clarence?” Di cried. She walked quickly behind Mart and bent down to peer at the dummy’s face. “Did—did you say something?”
“Of course he didn’t,” Trixie answered, grinning. “It was Mart. I saw his lips move.”
Mart sighed. “Ah, well, back to the drawing board. I’ve been practicing a ventriloquist act for the school’s talent show next week. I thought I was getting pretty good.”
“But not good enough to pull the wool over Trixie’s sharp eyes,” Jim assured him.
“I thought it was excellent, Mart,” Honey said loyally. “It almost fooled me, too.”
They gathered around him to read the next clues that they hoped would guide them to the treasure.
“I read what it said about the shore,” Mart declared, heaving poor Clarence to a more comfortable position. “The next bit says, ‘Beware of ghosts who guard the place.
‘With knife and cutlass, gun and mace.’ ” Dan was reading over Mart’s shoulder.
“What’s a mace?” Di asked.
“It’s a long stick with a spiked iron ball on the end of it,” Brian told her.
Di shuddered.
“ ‘Faint heart ne’er did a rich man make,’ Mart continued, “ ‘but gold is there for you to take. If you can find the pirate’s lair, then you have won a treasure rare.’ ” He looked at the circle of faces around him. “Now all we have to do is find the cave. Right, Clarence?”
The Mystery of the Ghostly Galeon Page 9
