The Mystery of the Vanishing Victim, page 10
part #33 of Trixie Belden Series
She stared at the car, trying to decide what was different about it. “It’s lower!” she exclaimed. She looked at the tires. They were all flat. “The signs are missing, too!” she added.
“They’re there, all right,” Brian said behind her. “They’re lying broken on the ground beside the car. The tires are flat because they were slashed. And if you walk around to the front, you’ll see that both the headlights are smashed.”
Trixie’s face was white under its spattering of freckles as she turned to look at her brother. “But why?”
Brian’s jaw was clenched. He thrust a crumpled note at his sister.
Trixie took the note and stared at it. LEAVE THE MISER ALONE it read.
“That was stuck in the window of the car,” Brian said.
“Then there is a miser!” Trixie exclaimed almost joyfully.
Trixie’s excitement angered her brother even more. “There’s also a vandal,” he reminded her. “Someone did who knows how much damage to a valuable antique—one that was entrusted to us. I think that’s the important thing right now.”
“Of course,” Trixie said. “But—”
“But nothing. I’m going to call the police,” Brian said. He turned on his heel and walked back into the house.
Trixie followed, her excitement fading as she realized that what Brian had said was true. The damage done to the car wasn’t just a possible clue to the mystery of the miser. It was a potential tragedy to the Bob-Whites, who had been trusted with the car because Mr. Burnside thought they were capable of taking care of it until the sale. “Mr. Burnside probably won’t let us have the car for the sale now,”
Trixie muttered as she walked to her room. “He probably won’t let us use his warehouse for donations.” She froze on the top step as the final, most horrible thought occurred to her. “He’ll probably even make us pay for the damage! Where will we ever get the money?”
By the time Trixie had changed clothes and come back downstairs, she was on the verge of tears. The noise that had awakened her had been replaced by a pall of silence. Brian and Mart sat tensely at the dining room table.
Trixie slipped noiselessly into a chair across from her brothers.
“Sergeant Molinson is on his way over,” Brian told her.
Trixie nodded her head to let her brother know she’d heard him, but she said nothing.
The sound of the sergeant’s car coming up the drive finally broke the stillness, and the three Bob-Whites went out to the driveway to meet him.
The sergeant was already inspecting the damage to the Model A. “Not as bad as it might have been,” he said.
“Bad enough,” Brian answered glumly.
“Can you check the car for fingerprints?” Trixie said. “There must be some way of finding out who did this.”
“Oh, I think I already know who did it,” Sergeant Molinson said, stepping back from the car.
The three Beldens stared at him in disbelief. “You do?” Trixie asked.
“It was your hit-and-run victim,” the sergeant said. Then he snorted contemptuously.
Trixie stared at Sergeant Molinson as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “But he’s in the hospital!” she said.
“Not anymore, he’s not,” the sergeant told her. “He sneaked out during the night. Nobody noticed he was gone until I went over early this morning to arrest him.”
“Arrest him?” Trixie exclaimed. She looked from the sergeant to Brian to Mart, too confused even to ask questions.
“Could you tell us what’s going on?” Brian asked.. “Let’s go inside.”
Once again the three Beldens gathered around the dining room table. Sergeant Molinson began to speak as he sat down. “The FBI report came in first thing this morning. The victim’s name is Henry Meiser. He escaped last week from a state prison. He was serving a six-month sentence for assault with a deadly weapon.” The sergeant stopped to let his words sink in.
Trixie stared at him and asked, “His name is MiserP When he was hit by the van, was he talking about finding himself?”
“I can’t answer that,” Sergeant Molinson said after a thoughtful pause. “His name is spelled M-E-I-S-E-R, and he may have meant anything, I guess. It seems that Meiser is the classic eccentric inventor. He’s always working on some weird contraption or other. He was harmless enough, though, until a few years ago. Then he claimed he’d had an invention stolen from him. After that, he got more and more secretive. He didn’t trust anyone except his secretary, a young widow who had worked for him for a number of years. He wouldn’t even patent his inventions, because he was sure that the patent officers were idea thieves.”
“That explains it!” Trixie exclaimed.
“Explains what?” Molinson asked sharply.
“When I visited him in the hospital yesterday, he told me about the Stanley brothers—the inventors of the Stanley Steamer. He told how they’d lost control of the rights to their cars. I thought at the time that it sounded as though he was talking about himself. And he was—sort of, at least.”
“But what about the assault?” Brian asked. “Meiser finally went off his rocker completely, I guess,” Sergeant Molinson replied. “As I said before, the only person he’d trust was his secretary. He had a janitor, too, who cleaned up the workroom and helped him move heavy things around. One night the janitor was mopping up the floor, when Meiser suddenly flew into a rage. He pulled a gun on the man and accused him of trying to steal his most recent invention.”
“What was the invention?” Trixie asked.
The sergeant shrugged. “Nobody knows. Certainly not the janitor. Meiser kept everything in his head and didn’t talk to anyone. The janitor testified in court that he didn’t know what Meiser was working on, and he didn’t care. He just mopped the floors and cashed his paycheck every week.”
“Did Mr. Meiser shoot the janitor?” Trixie asked. “No. As I said, he threatened to. The janitor testified that he threw down his mop and raised his hands. He turned to leave, and Meiser struck him from behind with the butt of his gun. When the janitor came to, he was lying in the alley behind the workshop. The lights in the shop were off, and the door was locked,” Sergeant Molinson concluded.
“You keep talking about the janitor’s testimony in court,” Trixie pointed out. “Did Mr. Meiser admit that it happened the way the janitor said it did?”
“Of course not,” the sergeant said. “Meiser stuck to his original story, that the janitor was stealing his invention. He even claimed that the janitor pulled the gun on him and that he managed to knock the man on the head with a piece of lead pipe, take the gun away, and haul the man to the alley.”
“Couldn’t he have been telling the truth, and not the janitor?” Trixie asked the Sleepyside officer.
“Sure. He could have been. Half a dozen witnesses could have been lying, too, when they testified that Meiser had been getting more and more eccentric, convinced that everyone in the world was out to get him. But I don’t think that’s how it happened,” Sergeant Molinson said.
Trixie sat silent for a moment. She remembered her conversation with Henry Meiser. He had seemed eccentric, she had to admit. She herself had used the word “hostile” to describe him. But he certainly hadn’t seemed capable of violence. She pictured him in his hospital bed, his head swathed in bandages.
“Wait a minute!” Trixie exclaimed aloud. “We saw him get hit by that van. Was that faked somehow?”
Sergeant Molinson shook his head. “He was hurt, all right. He had a concussion and two cracked ribs. Every step he takes is going to be very painful.”
“Then why would he leave the hospital?” Trixie asked.
“I guess he figured a few days in pain beats a few years in prison,” the sergeant said. “That’s what he’ll get if he’s caught. He’d have been freed in a couple of months if he hadn’t decided to escape.” The sergeant shook his head. “I just wish that FBI report had come in a few hours earlier.”
Trixie gasped as she suddenly realized why Henry Meiser had sneaked out of the hospital. She had told him about the fingerprint check! As all eyes turned to her, she blushed and stammered, “I—I guess I helped him to escape.” Hurrying to explain before he could yell at her, she told the sergeant what she had said to Henry Meiser. She added, “You said he probably wasn’t a criminal. I just wanted to make him feel better about having amnesia. Does this make me an accessory to the escape?”
The Glenwood Avenue Connection ● 9
SERGEANT MOLINSON SHOOK HIS HEAD RUEFULLY. “I wish I could charge you with something. I’d like a judge to sentence you to a year’s silence. But I didn’t tell you to keep the fingerprinting secret. So it’s my responsibility, not yours.”
The relief that showed on Trixie’s face was quickly replaced by a puzzled look. “Sergeant,” she asked, “if Mr. Meiser really was in pain, as you say, why wouldn’t he want to get as far away from Sleepyside as possible and just hide a few days until he felt better? Why would he take the time to come clear out here and vandalize the Model A?”
“You young people were the last ones who talked to Meiser before the accident. After the accident, he couldn’t remember what he’d said to you, although that doesn’t mean he had total amnesia,” Molinson added, flashing a dark look at Trixie. “Obviously, he was afraid he’d said something he shouldn’t have. That vandalism was a warning to you that you’d better not tell what you know.”
“But what is it that we know?” Trixie demanded. “I was thinking back over your report of the hit and run while I was driving over here,” the sergeant told her. “It seems to me that Glenwood Avenue is the key. We know that’s where he was going. We also know he never got there. I think he didn’t want anyone else getting there first. I have all the public buildings along Glenwood staked out. I also made sure the officers who patrol Glenwood have Meiser’s description. I think that if Meiser does turn up in Sleepyside, that’s where he’ll be.”
“I know—” Trixie broke off as she remembered the haunted eyes of the woman who lived on Glenwood Avenue. She remembered, too, what Honey had said: They had no real proof that the woman was connected with the hit-and-run victim. But a visit from the police would surely terrify her. She might, as Honey suggested, pack up and flee again from whatever unknown danger was frightening her. “I know you’ll be able to find him,” she concluded awkwardly.
Sergeant Molinson left, and Trixie and her brothers remained seated at the table.
“What do we do now?” Trixie asked.
“Honey and Jim should know about this,” Brian said. “Dan and Di, too. I think an emergency meeting of the Bob-Whites is in order.”
Trixie nodded, rose from the table and walked to the telephone. She returned a few minutes later and reported, “Honey and Jim and Dan are on their way to the clubhouse now. Di wasn’t home. I guess we’ll have to fill her in later.”
The three Beldens told their mother where they were going and set off for the clubhouse. The Bob-Whites’ clubhouse was actually the old gatehouse for the Wheeler estate. The seven club members had shared many happy times there. But, Trixie reflected, looking at her two brothers, who walked with their heads down and their hands jammed in their pockets, this morning’s meeting would not be a happy one.
Honey and Jim were waiting at the clubhouse when Trixie and her brothers arrived. Dan hurried in a minute later. — Although Trixie and Jim were copresidents of the club, it was Brian Belden who took charge of this meeting. “What did Trixie tell you on the phone?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Honey said, her hazel eyes wide. “She just asked us to come here right away. Oh, Brian, what’s the matter?”
Briefly, Brian told the other three Bob-Whites about the damage to the Model A and their conversation with Sergeant Molinson.
When he told them the sergeant’s theory that Glenwood Avenue was a key piece of the puzzle, Honey turned an inquiring gaze on her best friend. Trixie moved her head slightly from left to right, signaling Honey to remain silent. Then she looked down at the table as she realized that Jim had noticed the silent communication between the two girls.
“At any rate,” Brian continued, “Mr. Meiser isn’t our problem. The Model A is. I wanted to have this meeting so that we could decide, together, what to do about the damage.”
“We sure don’t have enough money in the treasury to get the car fixed,” Dan Mangan grumbled.
“The pecuniary paucity of the treasury is surely legend by now,” Mart agreed glumly.
“There’s never enough money in the treasury for anything,” Trixie said. “I don’t understand how it happens, because we all contribute every cent we earn. I put in the money I get for baby-sitting with Bobby, and Honey puts in the money she gets for Moms’s mending, and—”
“We all know where the money comes from,” Brian said impatiently. “We all know where it goes, too. We had about forty dollars built up in the treasury before we decided to have the rummage sale. Then we bought posters and had fliers printed up and put a couple of ads in the Sun. I think we have about fifteen dollars left. But forty or fifteen, it wouldn’t begin to cover the cost of four new tires and two new headlights.”
“How much will they cost?” Jim asked.
Brian shook his head. “That’s the biggest problem we have,” he said. “I don’t know how much replacement parts are for an antique car. I don’t know where to find them, either.”
“We’re going to have to tell Mr. Burnside what happened,” Jim said.
“Oh, woe!” Trixie said. “Do we have to?”
“The Model A is our responsibility, but until it’s sold, it’s still his car. We have to face the consequences,” Jim said firmly.
“But there are so many consequences,” Trixie said. “He could take back the car. He could refuse to let us use his lumberyard to store the donations. He could even call off the whole antique car show. And then almost everyone who comes to the sale will be disappointed.”
“I think you’re getting carried away,” Jim said. “He could do all of those things, but I don’t think he will. At most, he might take the car back. I couldn’t blame him for that.”
“Neither could I,” Brian agreed. “But I think the best way to keep the other things from happening is to have a plan in mind for paying for the damages when we tell him about them. Could we get back to that subject, please?”
“Couldn’t we borrow the money from our parents, just this once?” Honey pleaded.
Jim shook his head. “You know that goes against what this club stands for, Honey. We decided right at the beginning that this was our club and we’d take care of ourselves.”
Trixie wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so honorable, Jim Frayne,” she said.
“I don’t think you really mean that,” Jim said mildly.
Trixie sighed. “You’re right. I don’t. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve set aside the whole fortune you inherited from your uncle to establish a school for homeless boys once you’ve finished college. I think it’s wonderful that you’re teaching Honey to rely on her own abilities instead of her father’s money. I even think it’s wonderful that the prize for getting the most donations for the rummage sale is slave labor instead of part of the proceeds. But—-“
“Eureka!” Mart Belden shouted. “The ordinarily invalid intellect of my simpering sibling has invented, albeit inadvertently, a delightful denouement to this dilemma.”
“Did I say something right for a change?” Trixie asked, blinking owlishly.
Brian nodded, grinning. “I think I know what Mart means,” he said. “And it is a wonderful idea.”
“It sure is,” Dan Mangan agreed.
“I think it is, too, since I thought of it,” Trixie said. “But would somebody please tell me what it is?”
“When we tell Mr. Burnside about the damage to the car, we’ll tell him, at the same time, that we’re willing to work off the cost of the repairs,” Brian explained with a happy smile.
“Oh,” Trixie said. She beamed at the other Bob-Whites. “That is a good idea. I’m glad I thought of it.”
Brian shoved her teasingly. “The brains of the Belden family,” he jested.
Trixie continued to smile, and her friends smiled back. It was a relief to have the problem solved.
“There’s something else to think about,” Jim said, his smile fading. “The damage to the car wasn’t accidental, remember? It was vandalism. Do we dare to keep that car until the sale? Do we even dare to put it on display, along with a lot of others that might be more valuable, and risk having them ruined, too?”
“I really don’t see that as a problem,” Brian said. “The vandal was Henry Meiser. He made his point.
He’s probably long gone by now. He won’t risk coming back, especially when there’s a crowd around.”
“I think you’re right about the cars being safe,” Trixie said. “But I’m not sure I believe that Mr. Meiser was the vandal.”
“Sergeant Molinson believes it. I think I’m willing to take his word for it, unless you can think of a better suspect,” Brian told her.
“I bet I can give you three good reasons for Mr. Meiser not being the best suspect,” Trixie retorted.
“I’m listening,” Brian told her, folding his arms across his chest.
“Well,” Trixie said slowly, trying to organize her thoughts, “first of all, there’s the note that was left on the car. ‘Leave the miser alone.’ If Mr. Meiser wrote that note, why wouldn’t he spell his name right?”
“Perchance it was an attempt at subtlety,” Mart said, “a clever alteration of his own cognomen.”
“Or there might be a small-m miser that Henry capital-m Meiser is looking for,” Brian said. “That was our first thought, the night of the accident. Maybe there’s a miser on Glenwood Avenue, after all.”
“But none of us remembers hearing about a miser in all of Sleepyside,” Trixie told her brother.
“It might not be a miser we’d have heard about,” Dan said. “What I mean is, Sergeant Molinson told you Mr. Meiser had accused someone of stealing an invention from him. Maybe he just started calling the thief a miser, because the thief was keeping the profits of the invention to himself, instead of sharing them.”
