The Trail of the Green Doll

by Margaret Sutton

  CHAPTER I “Tourists Welcome”

  “It looks nice, doesn’t it, Judy?”

  Honey was surveying with pride the sign she had just finished lettering.“TOURISTS WELCOME,” it said. That was all. But the sign was in the shapeof an arrow. It pointed toward the private road that crossed Dry Brookand continued on through the beech grove and up a little hill to thehouse Judy had inherited from her grandparents. It was a simplefarmhouse with a wide front porch. Never, until this moment, had it beenknown as a tourist home.

  “It looks beautiful,” Judy agreed. “I wonder who our first tourist willbe. This is going to be exciting. Wait till Peter hears—”

  “Haven’t you told him?” Peter’s sister questioned in surprise.

  “How could I?” Judy laughed. “He wasn’t here when I thought of it. I waswalking through all those spare rooms we have, and the house seemed sortof empty. Then you came, and I thought of asking you to letter the sign.It ought to attract someone. There aren’t any other tourist places alongthis road.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Honey, “but isn’t it a little—well, dangerous?”

  “To take in tourists? Lots of people do it,” declared Judy.

  “I know,” Honey objected, “but I can’t help suspecting you of somesecret motive. This isn’t a trap for an escaped federal prisoner, is it?What did you do? Peek at the FBI files?”

  “Of course not!” Judy was indignant at the suggestion. Like mostredheads, she was quick to flare up. But she cooled down just asquickly. “I couldn’t look at them even if I wanted to,” she now informedHoney. “They’re kept at the agency in the Farringdon courthouse. Peteris supposed to work there instead of at home for some reason.”

  “You couldn’t be the reason, could you?” teased Honey.

  “Because I’ve helped him solve a few mysteries? Why shouldn’t I?” Judyretorted. “What are FBI wives supposed to do if not help theirhusbands?”

  “They help them in other ways,” Honey began. “They stay home and takecare of their families. They do secretarial work—”

  “Not according to Peter,” Judy interrupted. “Oh, I know he calls me hissecretary, but I’m not really in the employ of the government the way heis. Sometimes he asks me to type reports on things I already know about,or write a letter. As for taking care of the family, we haven’t anyunless you count Blackberry, and cats take care of themselves.”

  “You do have the house—”

  “Yes, and I may as well make use of it,” Judy broke in. “This may beexciting—”

  “Judy,” Honey interrupted, “do you see what I see?”

  “A car with three men in it! Oh dear! I hadn’t counted on so many!” Judyexclaimed as the car came to a stop beside them.

  At first both girls were dismayed. Gray eyes met blue ones in a momentof panic. Then Honey recognized one of the men as a customer who hadordered signs to be lettered at the studio in Farringdon where sheworked as an artist.

  “That one won’t want a room,” she whispered. “He lives around here. Hisname’s Montrose, I think.”

  “What about the others?” Judy whispered back.

  For some reason that she could not name, she was suddenly suspicious ofthem. None of the men introduced themselves. After inquiring brieflyabout the sign, they piled out of the expensive car they were drivingand asked Judy and Honey to show them the house. The two girls starteddown the road, hardly knowing what to expect. They had crossed Dry Brookand were passing through the beech grove when a sudden rustling of thewind in the trees overhead made them look up. The sky had darkenedalthough it was still early in the day.

  “It’s weird,” Judy whispered. “See that pinkish haze over there? Itmakes the sun look red. And the wind sounds—strange.”

  “It is sort of spooky,” Honey replied. “I think a storm is blowing up.”

  “We need it,” Judy said. “The ground is too dry. Maybe it’s just dustthat makes the sky look pink.”

  “Pink!” exclaimed Honey. “It looks green in the other direction, and Idon’t like it. There’s something unnatural about the weather lately.Haven’t you noticed it yourself?”

  “I haven’t thought much about it,” replied Judy.

  She could tell Honey was chattering because she was nervous, and said nomore. The three men were now exploring the grove, spreading out in alldirections.

  “That a barn over there?” one man inquired.

  Before Judy could answer, another of the men, who had a white scaracross his cheek, said, “Anything in it?”

  “Just a saddle horse and one cow,” Judy began. “We like fresh milk.”

  A stout man, the shortest of the three, chuckled.

  “Your dad ain’t much of a farmer, is he?”

  “My dad doesn’t live here,” Judy said. “There’s just my husband andmyself—”

  “Your husband? Now you are kidding. You girls don’t either one of youlook more than sixteen. Who’s this other girl if you’re the lady of thehouse?”

  “I’m her sister-in-law,” Honey said. “I don’t live here in Dry BrookHollow. I live in Farringdon.”

  “You work there, too, don’t you?” inquired the man she knew as Mr.Montrose. “Weren’t you the girl who took my order for signs?”

  “I was,” Honey admitted. “I lettered them, too. But I’m not workingtoday, because it’s Saturday.”

  “I see. You’re just here on a visit—”

  “Anybody else visit?” one of the other men interrupted.

  “Of course,” Judy replied a little impatiently. “Lots of people do. Myfriends, my parents, my brother—”

  “Anybody else today?”

  “Oh, you mean tourists. Not yet. We just put up the sign.”

  “Perhaps the young lady would like to show us what she’s advertising,”the man Honey recognized suggested.

  “Why, certainly,” Judy began, but the short, stout man interrupted.

  “It ain’t secluded enough for what we want,” he said to the driver.“What we had in mind was a place in the upper price brackets, not atourist home.”

  “We’ll have a look, anyway.”

  But Judy had changed her mind about showing them the house and said so.

  “I think you’ve made a mistake. My house isn’t for sale,” she informedthem.

  There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the wind. Itwas almost moaning. Judy had never heard it make such a strange noisebefore.

  “The place ain’t ha’nted, is it?” the stout man asked.

  “It might be,” the third man said, and Judy couldn’t tell whether or nothe was serious.

  “Maybe we can find another place farther out in the country,” the shortman suggested.

  “You’re headed for a town right now,” Honey told them. “Roulsville isjust a few miles below here. Then comes a long stretch of state forestland—”

  “National forest,” Judy corrected her.

  The tallest man in the group looked at her sharply.

  “Does it make any difference?”

  “Why, n-no,” she stammered, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under hisscrutiny. “There are both state and national forest reserves just westof here. I don’t know where one ends and the other begins, really. Ididn’t mean—”

  Judy stopped abruptly. A voice that seemed to come from the treesthemselves had said, with unmistakable urgency:

  “_Don’t look for it!_”