The Mystery Off Glen Road Page 9

  It was almost one when they separated in front of the stable. Trixie raced home and scrubbed her hands at the kitchen sink. The other Beldens were already seated at the table, but nobody scolded her for being late.

  “We’ve finished our share of the work,” Brian told her. “How did the patrolling go?”

  “Fine,” Trixie said. “Just fine.”

  “How many poachers did you two catch?” Mart asked derisively as she pulled out her chair. “And where did you leave their corpses?”

  Trixie jumped guiltily and hastily changed the subject. “What about grain for the birds? When do we scatter that around?”

  “Jim and I took care of that today,” Brian said. “I’m not sure when it has to be done again, but Jim will let you know.” He turned to his father. “Jim sure is great, Dad. He seems to know everything about everything.”

  They began to discuss the work they were doing on the clubhouse then and Trixie ate in silence. There was so much to be done and so little time to do it all in. After lunch she washed the dishes and hurried up to take a shower. It was agony to have to waste time getting dressed up for Ben’s arrival, because just as soon as she could, she was going to go home and change back into jeans. Then she would bike along the road to the trail that led into the game preserve. After that she would have to walk until she reached the clearing where the Thing was. If the Thing was still there! She shuddered just thinking about it.

  For slowly but surely Trixie had come to the conclusion that she could not sleep that night until she made sure, one way or the other, about the dogs. If they were the culprits she knew that she would have to tell Jim. But if they weren’t, then the terrible weight on her conscience would disappear.

  Chapter 12

  A Baffling Discovery

  Trixie wore a pleated dark-blue wool skirt and a pale-blue cashmere sweater set with matching socks. She even polished her school moccasins so they didn’t look quite so scuffed, and clasped around her neck a strand of small pearls which Di had donated to the cause.

  Then all of a sudden it dawned on her that today of all days she should be wearing her ring. In fact, she should wear it every time she got dressed up all week. After all the fuss she had made, somebody, if not everybody in the family would be sure to notice that she never wore it.

  “Oh, woe,” Trixie moaned as she started up the hill to the Manor House, “why do I get myself into these scrapes? I wish Jim had never given me that ring.”

  What could she do to solve this problem?

  “Nothing,” she decided, and trudged along until she caught sight of the boys and girls who were waiting for her on the veranda. By the time she arrived, Jim, Brian, and Mart were leaving to continue work on the clubhouse.

  They glanced at her with pity, shrugged and sighed as one man, and departed. This suited Trixie fine because now she didn’t have to put on her act. Then she noticed to her satisfaction that Di, looking prettier than ever, had already captivated Ben.

  He stared at Trixie for a moment as though he didn’t know who she was, then said coolly, “Hi, goon. Go home and take off your mother’s clothes. On you they definitely look queer.”

  Honey said quickly, “You look darling, Trixie. Come on up to my room with me for a sec. I want to show you something.” She winked at Di. “It’s about the secret. You know.”

  Di winked back with an understanding smile and said to Ben, “Let’s play some of our favorite records. I’m so glad you like hillbilly songs, too.”

  “Wow!” Trixie exploded when she and Honey were alone upstairs. “Di’s got him, hook, line, and sinker. How in the world can she stand him?”

  “Oh, Trixie,” Honey cried. “He’s really very good-looking. Tall and blond and broad-shouldered and all. But let’s not talk about him. What worries me is your ring. You’ve simply got to wear it every now and then. If you don’t, your father will think you lost it.”

  “I wish I had,” Trixie said mournfully. “I mean, I wish I were a liar so I could tell him I’d lost it when he asks me where it is. Which he’s going to do pretty soon.”

  Honey nodded. “If you keep your hands in your pockets, you might get by with it for a while. But you can’t do that at your Thanksgiving party.”

  “I can’t do it and eat dinner every evening either,” Trixie pointed out tartly. Suddenly she brightened. “Now that Di has broken my heart and all, do I have to dress up for dinner every night?”

  Honey thought for a moment. “I guess not, but you’ve simply got to look sad for at least a couple of days.”

  “I am sad,” Trixie retorted. “I’m so darn sad, I’m thinking seriously of running away from home and staying until I can get that ring back from Mr. Lytell.”

  Honey laughed. “Now you’re talking like Bobby. Every time he gets into a scrape he runs away. Thank goodness he never runs any farther than your chicken coop or Regan’s apartment over the garage.”

  Trixie shrugged. “Most of the time Bobby doesn’t have sense enough to know when he’s done something awful. Remember what a scare he gave us when he lost that diamond we found in the clubhouse when it was still the gatehouse?”

  “He didn’t lose it,” Honey reminded her. “He put it accidentally in the safest possible place.”

  “Oh!” Trixie suddenly slid off the window seat and raced over to Honey’s dainty dressing table. She grabbed the jewel box and brought it back to Honey. “This thing is jam-packed with costume jewelry. There must be a phony diamond ring in it that looks enough like mine so I can wear it for a week.”

  Honey gasped. “Trixie, you’re so smart. There is one somewhere.” She dumped the contents on the window seat and they both stared at the jumbled mass of pins, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and rings. “I don’t know where one thing begins and the other one ends,” Honey complained as she tried to disentangle the various bright stones and strands.

  Trixie held her breath until they were all sorted, then she let it out in a long, discouraged sigh. “Nine rings, but not one of them with anything that faintly resembles a diamond. And you’re supposed to be my best friend, Honey Wheeler.”

  Honey giggled. “Have no fears, I shall not fail you. I remember now where that diamond ring is. Mother borrowed it from me when she went to a masquerade as the Queen of Sheba. It must be in her costume jewelry box.” She led the way down the hall and into Mrs. Wheeler’s beautiful room. She marched over to the dressing table, lifted the cover on a handsome leather case, took out a tray, and cried triumphantly: “Behold, comrade! In fact, take your choice. There are four to be exact.”

  Trixie peered over Honey’s shoulder. “Are you sure these are all fakes?” she asked in an awed tone of voice.

  “Of course,” Honey replied. “They’re not even good paste imitations. Mother has tons of those, of course, which look exactly like her valuable jewels, but they’re so expensive to make she keeps them under lock and key. All of the stuff in this box is just junk she wears for fun.” She took out one of the rings. “This looks enough like yours so if you don’t get too close to somebody who knows all about precious stones you’ll get by with it.”

  Trixie hesitated before she slipped it on her finger. “It’s kind of loose,” she murmured nervously. “Suppose I lose it? How much is it worth, Honey?”

  “About a dollar,” Honey said airily. “Anyway, it’s mine, so don’t worry. I hereby give it to you, to have and to hold or to lose, but please don’t lose it until you get your own back.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Trixie said as they went back into Honey’s room. For a moment she felt guilty. Honey was such a good friend! She really should tell her that she was going to go back and examine the Thing. But if she did, Honey would argue against it. She would be sympathetic and say:

  “I know just how you feel. I won’t be able to sleep tonight either because of my guilty conscience. But it’ll be dark before you get there. You might get lost in the labyrinth. The dogs will be shut up indoors all night, so tomorrow morning when we patrol be
fore school will be soon enough.”

  Right now Honey was saying, “I wish you’d stay for hot chocolate and cookies, Trix. The boys are coming to my little party because it’ll be too dark to work on the clubhouse after four-thirty. We won’t have much fun without you, but I know just how you feel. You’d have to put on an act and pretend you were jealous, and you must be awfully tired, what with the chores you have to do at home and all.” She linked her arm through Trixie’s and they strolled down the stairs. “Jim and I think you’re just wonderful, Trixie. Practically perfect. So don’t pay any attention to Ben when he makes stupid remarks. I mean, don’t stay away from here all week on account of him. The house party is all set. Di has accepted. I invited her for the whole vacation when I asked her to come out today because I suddenly remembered that she and Ben are both music-lovers. They’ll probably spend the whole time listening to records, so we won’t ever see them, except at meals.” She stopped to catch her breath.

  Trixie hugged her arm. “You’re the one who’s wonderful, Honey,” she said softly. “Practically perfect. Don’t worry about the house party. It’s going to be great. But I’ve got to go now. It must be four o’clock.” She broke away from Honey and ran off.

  Back at home, Trixie hastily changed into dungarees and high wool socks. As she slipped her cashmere sweater over her head, the prongs in the setting of Honey’s ring got caught in the sleeve and the ring came off, too. Impatiently Trixie plucked it free and tossed it into her top bureau drawer. Then she donned her old heavy wool sweater and hurried downstairs. One good break was that her parents and Bobby had gone off for a drive after lunch. Without even telling a little white lie, Trixie had let them take it for granted that she was going to spend the whole afternoon and evening up at the Manor House.

  At the garage she hopped on her bike and coasted down the driveway. Then she pedaled along the road as fast as she could. The sun was a red ball cut in half by the tops of the towering evergreens in the distance. When the ball of fire dipped down completely into the Hudson River it would grow dark very quickly. Too late Trixie realized that she should have brought along a flashlight.

  It was already gloomy in the woods when she turned off the trail and hid her bike in the bushes. Traveling on foot along that rocky path was very different from riding horseback on it. She soon found out that she couldn’t walk fast without the risk of turning her ankle, and every time she came around a bend the stretch that lay ahead of her seemed to be blacked out by shadows until her eyes grew accustomed to the dusk. Then, a few yards later, the waning light of the sun was almost blinding.

  I know how moles feel now, Trixie said to herself as she stumbled along. No wonder they can’t see when they come up from their underground tunnels every now and then.

  In order to keep up her courage she began to talk out loud: “I wish I were a mole or a bat or an owl. Do any of them eat carcasses? All that business about ants eating antlers was silly. There are only army ants in the tropics. They can demolish a carcass in a matter of hours, but there aren’t any around here.… Mice eat antlers, though. I read about it in one of Brian’s books. I hope there’s an army of field mice in these woods.… Foxes and catamounts are scavengers, too, but not as thorough as buzzards and jackals.… Coyotes do a good job, but they don’t eat antlers. All of the million buffalo horns that have been whitening for ages on the deserts out west are proof of that. Besides none of the coyotes, which are called brush wolves in the Adirondacks, would come all the way down here just to eat up a dead deer. But there are plenty of big wild cats. That’s why that little purple mountain over there is called Catamount Hill. I wish it were closer.… No, I don’t. Catamounts are supposed to be cowards, but that all depends on your definition of coward. I’m scared to death right now, and I think I’m lost, but you don’t see me running away, do you? Not that I’d know in which direction to run.…”

  For Trixie was lost now. So long as she could see an inch of the sunset between the evergreens she knew where west was, but now there was only a pale-green light in the sky—a yellowish green which usually means that a storm of some sort is on the way. The air was growing colder, too, and there was a moistness in it which Trixie felt sure meant that it would snow before morning.

  She stumbled along, her teeth chattering as much from cold as from nervousness, and all of a sudden found herself at the fork where Honey had waited for her with the horses that morning. Now she knew exactly where she was and in a matter of minutes burst into the other small clearing. There were no shadows here and neither was there any sign whatsoever that a dead deer had ever lain in that spot.

  Trixie rubbed her eyes. “I must have been dreaming after all.” She knelt, straining her eyes, and then she saw the impression the body of the deer had made in the bed of pine needles. And some of the red-brown leaves were that color because blood had been splattered on them. There were also unmistakable signs that a human had eviscerated the carcass at this very spot. Trixie knew about these internal organs of animals because she had often cleaned chickens after her brothers had killed and plucked them. Moms had painstakingly taught her how to “draw” a bird so now Trixie was what the family called an “expert butcher.” The heart, liver, and gizzard were used for gravy-making. The lungs and such, or “lights” as professional butchers called them, were boiled into a rich broth for mixing with dehydrated dog food—for Reddy!

  Trixie sank to her knees. Reddy and Patch weren’t the culprits after all, thank goodness. All over the damp soil in the clearing were tiny pawprints which proved that other, smaller animals had done the scavenging job after the human took the venison away. Bluejays had probably swooped down, too, for their share. Jim would know, even in the gloom, exactly what animals and birds had been there. It was Jim who had taught Trixie how to tell the difference between the footprint of a fox and the footprint of a dog. There was an enormous difference in the pawprint of members of the cat family, and Trixie was glad to see that no cat had been near the spot. Not yet, anyway. It wasn’t dark enough for the catamounts to prowl.

  Then all of a sudden she saw tracks that made her eyes feel as though they were popping out of her head. Bike tire tracks! Not double, but single-tire tread marks. She followed them across the clearing to the spot where they disappeared on the pine-needle carpet of a narrow path. It wasn’t possible but it was true. Nobody, not even a circus performer, could have ridden any kind of a bike along the muddy paths and trails of these woods. But the tire tread marks proved that somebody had!

  Chapter 13

  A Peculiar Poacher

  Trixie groped her way along the narrow path for a few yards, then returned to the spot where the single bike tire tread disappeared. Visions of tightrope walkers and performing seals danced dizzily through her head as she started back to the fork. Only one thought was comforting. The dogs were not the culprits. They might, tempted by the sport of it, have chased a wounded deer, but they had certainly not killed and eviscerated it. A human had done that and that human must be the poacher.

  It was almost pitch dark when Trixie reached the small clearing near the fork, and because of the shadows, she hardly knew which way to turn. By groping blindly, she finally discovered the difference between the narrow paths and the wider trail, and stumbled along it. It seemed to wind through the branches of evergreens interminably. Just when she was sure she had reached the spot where she had hidden her bike, she found that she had emerged from the game preserve on to Glen Road at the very spot where the path, not the trail, ended opposite Mr. Lytell’s store.

  “Now when could I have left the trail?” Trixie asked herself as she trudged along the road. She was sure of only one thing: Nothing would induce her to go back into those shadowy woods except in broad daylight. The road was dark enough as it was, but she knew it so well that it wasn’t long before she was back on her bike pedaling the rest of the way home.

  When she got there, her parents and Bobby were having supper and they stared at her in amazement. “Why, Tr
ixie,” Mrs. Belden cried, “we thought you were at the Wheelers’. Didn’t Ben Riker arrive after all?”

  “Oh, yes,” Trixie told her. “But so did Di Lynch. They’re crazy about each other.” She tried her best to look jealous and heartbroken and resigned, but had a feeling that she only looked rather silly. She could see that both her father and mother were trying hard not to smile.

  “Well,” said Mrs. Belden, “have supper with us then. Macaroni with cheese-and-tomato sauce and salad. Bring me a plate, Trixie, and I’ll serve you.”

  Trixie was starving so she had two helpings of everything. Her father chuckled and quoted: “ ‘Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love.’ You’re living proof of that Shakespearean bit of wisdom, Trixie.” He leaned across the table. “Tell me. Wasn’t Ben impressed when you flashed your ring in his face? Or, did you make the mistake of greeting him dressed as you are?”

  “Oh, I got all dressed up,” Trixie said hastily. “But Di is so pretty, I knew right away that it wasn’t any use.”

  “M-m-m,” her father said thoughtfully. “Well, if you’ve decided to be normal again, I imagine you’ll want me to put your ring back in the vault. It’s hardly the appropriate accessory for the costume you’re now wearing.”

  “Oh, Dad,” Trixie cried. “You said I could keep the ring a week. You promised.”

  “So I did,” he agreed. “But, with the possible exception of our Thanksgiving party, I can’t imagine when you’ll want to wear it.”

  “Every evening,” Trixie said, hating the thought of it, “I’m going to get dressed up. I mean, the Wheelers are having a house party because Di’s spending the holidays there, too. Miss Trask is sure to ask Brian and Mart and me to a lot of meals. Their dinners are always formal. I can’t go there looking like this.”