The Red Trailer Mystery (3 page)

“Never mind, darling,” they heard her croon as Bud broke away and ran to Honey. “You’ll have another puppy some day. One all your own.”

“I want him,” Sally wailed, hiding her teary face in her sister’s neck. “He’s
mine
.”

And then the shaggy-haired man came hurrying back from the hot-dog stand with a paper plate of sandwiches and a quart of milk in a container. He was frowning darkly as he set the food inside the trailer and reached out a long, muscular arm to snatch Sally away from her sister.

“Get inside, all of you,” he muttered in a harsh, bitter undertone. “Quick!”

The tired-faced woman cringed as though she had been slapped, and she meekly obeyed, taking the two babies with her. But Joeanne stood defiantly for a moment, staring at her father as though she had never seen him before, and as they glared at each other Trixie thought she had never seen two people who looked more alike.

Both of them were deeply tanned with taut, wiry muscles, and, Trixie reflected with an inward laugh, if the father didn’t do something about his shaggy black hair soon, he would have to braid it into two pigtails to keep it out of his eyes.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Joeanne was saying quietly over her shoulder to Trixie and Honey. “My little sister doesn’t understand. We had a black cocker puppy once but he died.” Then with a toss of her long black braids she marched stiffly inside the
Robin
behind her father and slammed the door.

One of the babies began to cry, but there was no other sound inside the red trailer. No one spoke, at least not loud enough for Trixie or Honey to hear what he or she said.

Honey stared at Trixie. “Did you ever hear of such a peculiar family? There they are all inside that trailer and no one is speaking to anybody else. I hope they give that baby some milk soon. It sounds as though it were starving.”

“They all looked starved,” Trixie said. “And yet they must have plenty of money if they own that big red trailer. I caught a glimpse of the inside just before Joeanne closed the door and it looks as though it must have cost almost as much as the
Swan
did. It has double-decker bunks made of maple and newly painted shelves and shiny floors and everything.” She stopped, frowning thoughtfully. “You know, Honey, I think I’ve been inside that trailer sometime or other, but I can’t remember when or where.”

“You may have seen pictures of it in some magazine,” Honey suggested. “Ours has been written up lots of times along with ones owned by movie stars. As a matter of fact,” she finished, “the
Swan
originally belonged to a movie star who got bored with it and sold
it to Dad. He bought it for Mother’s birthday last year but she doesn’t like it.”

But Trixie wasn’t listening. She was thinking about the shaggy-haired man and his hungry family. “Do you suppose that man is a mean old miser?” she asked Honey. “Like Jim’s great-uncle was? Old Mr. Frayne used to go around looking like a scarecrow and he never had enough to eat.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Honey admitted. “I liked that girl with the pigtails—Joeanne. She was the only one who didn’t act afraid of her father.”

“Oh, look,” Trixie cried. “She dropped one of her hair ribbons.” She stooped and picked up the faded bow of frayed blue sateen. “I’m going to take it back to her. It’ll give me a good excuse to see inside the
Robin
. Then maybe I’ll remember where I saw it before.”

“You’ve got more nerve than I have,” said Honey, giggling nervously. “I’m scared of that long-haired man. He looks mean enough to bite.”

Trixie ignored her and hurried across the space between the two trailers. She rapped on the door and it was opened immediately by Joeanne herself. “You dropped this,” Trixie began, but the little girl quickly took the ribbon and closed the door again before Trixie could say another word.

“Well,” Trixie said as she joined Honey on the
Swan
steps, “I got another glimpse, and you know what? They were sitting on the bunks, staring into space, except for the father and he was holding his head in his hands.”

Honey laughed. “Now don’t tell me that wailing baby was sitting on a bunk. It’s too young for one thing and probably much too weak from hunger to do anything but cry.”

Trixie flushed with impatience. “I meant the mother and the other two children. Sally was sort of sulking but the little boy in overalls was just sitting there with the most awful vacant look in his face. It made me feel as though they had all given up hope, as if they didn’t care much what happened to them.” She shuddered. “It’s all so mysterious. Why aren’t they supposed to speak to strangers? Why did the mother look so shocked when Sally said Bud was her puppy?”

“And why,” Honey finished, “do they keep the shades down on a hot evening like this when they haven’t even gone to bed?”

Miss Trask came to the door of the
Swan
then. “I thought you two girls were going to fix a delicious meal.” She handed them each an apron. “We must eat and go right to bed so we can get an early start tomorrow. We wasted half a day this morning looking for Reddy.”

“I know,” Honey said as she and Trixie got to work
with a can opener and a frying pan. “We told Dad we’d arrive at Autoville tomorrow at the latest so we’ve got to in case he or Mother call to see if we arrived safely.”

Trixie stirred the dried beef in the hot oil, then added the thick, creamy mushroom soup while Honey buttered the toast and cut it into little squares.

“Let’s save on dish-washing,” Trixie said with a grin. She hated indoor work and always did her chores at home just as fast as she could. “If I add a can of peas to this goulash, there’ll be one less pan to wash.”

Miss Trask laughed good-naturedly. “All right this once. But no more short cuts. I want three-course meals from now on.”

The dinner was delicious although it took only a few minutes to prepare, and Trixie ate so much she fell asleep almost the minute she climbed into her bunk. The top deck she had chosen was on the side next to the red trailer. It began to rain in the night, at first a gentle patter, but after a while it came down in an angry torrent.

Trixie awoke with a start when the cold rain splashed in her face and she hastily closed the window beside her bunk. Honey had already closed the other windows with Miss Trask’s help.

“You certainly sleep soundly,” Honey said. “We have been shouting at you to wake up for a long time.”

Trixie swung her legs over the side of her bunk and
grinned down at them. “Isn’t this cozy? I love being all snug and warm inside and listening to the sound of rain coming down on the roof.”

“I do too,” Miss Trask said, “but this is a little too snug and warm for me. It’s going to get awfully stuffy in here if we can’t open the windows soon.”

“Mother can’t stand the Hudson River Valley in July and August,” Honey said. “She says it’s not only the heat but the humidity! That’s why Dad took her on a trip to Canada.”

The rain continued and the windows inside the trailer became clouded with steam. Trixie curled up on top of her bed and tried to go to sleep.
Poor Honey
, she thought,
she can’t help thinking about her mother and wondering why she doesn’t behave like other mothers
.

Honey had admitted to Trixie the very first day they met that she hardly knew her parents and had been brought up by nurses and governesses between boarding school and camp. Honey was, indeed, a poor little rich girl, and Trixie hoped that when the Canadian trip was over Honey and her mother would turn over a new leaf and try to get to know each other. Trixie could not bear to see anyone unhappy and she knew that although Honey loved Miss Trask, she craved the kind of mother Trixie herself had.

“But still,” Trixie told herself, “she’s not as bad off as Jim who’s an orphan. We’ve
got
to find him and then maybe, as Honey hopes, the Wheelers will adopt him so she can have a brother. He’ll like Brian and Mart and we can all go to school together next fall and have such good times in the winter, skiing and sledding and skating.”

Having Jim as a neighbor was such a pleasant thought that Trixie began to dream about the fun they could all have if things worked out right, and while she dreamed, the rain faded into a drizzle and finally stopped altogether.

Sleepily Trixie raised the window beside her bunk and went back to her dreams. Suddenly her happy thoughts were rudely interrupted by very unhappy sounds from the next trailer. A woman was weeping softly as though she could no longer keep her misery bottled up inside her.

And then a man’s voice, harsh and argumentative, rose above the quiet sobs. Trixie could only hear snatches, but what she heard jarred her into wide-awakeness.

“It’s got to be this way, I tell you. It’s the only way out—”

And then the woman. “Oh, no, Darney. It’s wrong. We should have known better. Look at what it’s doing already to Sally and Joeanne. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear
it. You’ve got to take it back at once. It may already be too late.”

Trixie’s heart ached for the sobbing woman, and she pulled the sheet over her head to shut out the sound of the voices in the
Robin
. But the man was hoarsely whispering, “Don’t be an idiot. We’ve got to go ahead with it. No one will ever know. And as for Joeanne and Sally, you should have let me—”

“Sh-h,” the woman cautioned. “You’ll awaken them. Go to sleep now, Darney. We’ll talk about it again in the morning.”

“A fine thing,” the man grumbled. “My own family turning against me! You were all for it in the beginning, Sarah.”

“I know, I know,” the woman moaned. “But I didn’t realize then—”

Whatever she was going to say was lost in muffled sobs. Then there was silence. A silence that made Trixie remember how, earlier, the family had sat together, staring vacantly into space.

“What is the matter with that family?” she wondered, tossing and turning in the hot, humid air. “Why do they all act as though they don’t care what happens to them? What is it the mother thinks should be taken back before it’s too late?”

Still wondering, Trixie dropped off to sleep but again, much later, she was awakened by sounds from the other trailer. At first she thought she was still dreaming, but then, gradually, she realized with bewilderment that this time it was a
man
who was sobbing. His breath was coming and going in the choked gasps of someone whose spirit is broken!

Trixie sat up, and in spite of the heat, she felt little goose pimples of horror icily prickling her bare arms.

Surely it couldn’t be the harsh-voiced, shaggy-haired man who was weeping! Then it must be someone else. Was it a helpless person who was being held against his will in the red trailer?

Was he the something who should be returned before it was too late?

Trixie, listening to the deep, regular breathing that was coming from the other bunks in the
Swan
felt lonely and frightened. Should she wake Miss Trask and tell her that someone in the next trailer needed help? If the man who was sobbing in those dry-throated gasps had been kidnaped, the police should be notified at once.

And then the sounds ceased as though whoever it was had buried his face in a pillow—or, Trixie couldn’t help wondering—had suddenly been smothered into silence.

In spite of herself, Trixie fell into an exhausted sleep, still wondering about the mysterious occupants of the red trailer parked alongside the
Swan
. When she awoke the sun was streaming through the rain-washed windows and Miss Trask was already dressed.

“The dogs woke me at dawn,” she said. “I let them out for a run. We may as well have breakfast at the hot-dog stand. It’ll save time.”

Honey was sleepily buttoning the front of her thin cotton shirt the tail of which she had tucked inside her seersucker shorts. “It’s too hot for a jersey and slacks,” she told Trixie. “I advise you to wear the coolest things you can find, and let’s open all the windows. It’s stifling in here.”

Trixie slipped into a white playsuit and helped Miss Trask open the windows they had closed during the rain in the night. Then they shut the dogs inside the trailer.

“One good thing about Reddy,” Trixie said as they hurried over to the hot-dog stand, “is that he won’t try to
jump through those screens and follow us. But he did go right through a window once. Remember, Honey?”

Honey nodded. “I don’t think either of them will try to leave the trailer till we get back. At least I hope not. They’ve caused enough delays as it is.”

Honey sounded so hot and cross and Miss Trask seemed to be in such a hurry to get started that Trixie decided not to tell them about the sobbing she had heard from the next trailer until later. As she drank her orange juice and ate her cereal, everything seemed so peaceful and quiet in the trailer camp that Trixie began to wonder if perhaps she had dreamed the mysterious conversation she had half listened to the night before.

When they came out of the hot-dog stand, she saw at once that the red trailer, which only a few minutes ago had been parked beside the
Swan
, was gone. And bounding across the mud puddles in the rutted road was Reddy, joyfully barking a greeting.