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to it, did he? Somehow I thought he would. That’s Mr. Marvin Appleton, one of our guests. He’s had his eye on that table all afternoon. I’ve been watching him. He’s been pretending he’s not at all interested in this vanishing pirate business. But mark my words! Before too long, he’ll be tapping around under there with the best of ’em. O’ course now, if you were to ask me, I’d say he’s not going to find the solution that easily. Plenty of people have tried— meself included. But nobody’s figured it out yet.” He shook his head. “No, girls, the answer’s not that simple.”
    Even while he was speaking, Trixie had been thinking the same thing. It was strange that, in all these years, no one had been able to solve the old mystery.
    She closed her eyes and imagined she was back in that long-ago time. The dining room would have looked newer then. It was almost certain there had been no wall-to-wall carpet on the floor. Had the bare wood echoed to the sound of tramping feet as the soldiers marched in to arrest Captain Trask? If so, that old pirate, seated at his table, would have looked up in anticipation as they came toward him.
    But what would he have done next? Trixie opened her eyes and stared at the old floorboards under that selfsame table. She noticed that Mr. Appleton seemed to be furtively testing them with the toes of his shoes.
    When he saw her watching him, he blushed furiously, leaned back in his chair, and pretended to be deeply interested in an old ship’s lamp that hung from the ceiling.
    Trixie’s thoughts began to race. Everyone believed there was a trapdoor under the table. In fact, when Jim first heard the story, it was the first thing that had leaped to his mind.
    But what if everyone was wrong?
    If there was a trapdoor, why hadn’t the soldiers seen Captain Trask hastily flip it open and disappear beneath it? And why hadn’t they just as promptly followed him to wherever it led?
    Trixie allowed her thoughts to return to her own first guess. She remembered another time and another place, when she had been trying to solve the mystery of some emeralds. There, at the house known as Green Trees, she had searched a wall’s dark paneling—and she had found a secret passage. It was entirely possible that there was one here at Pirate’s Inn, too, just waiting to be discovered.
    “Would you mind if Honey and I explored the rest of the dining room?” she asked Mr. Trask.
    “Explore wherever you like, Trixie,” he answered, smiling, “We’re not busy now, and I’ve got some things to see to for tonight’s little celebration. I just ask that you stay out of the kitchen.
    We’ll undoubtedly have our usual dinner rush this evening, and Cookie gets a mite upset when he’s interrupted.”
    When he had gone, Honey asked, “Did you think of something, Trix? Have you figured out how Captain Trask disappeared?”
    “Do you remember how I thought there might be a secret passage somewhere in these walls?” Trixie asked. “Well, I still think so. And I know just where we’re going to start looking.”
    With Honey close on her heels, Trixie walked quickly to the other side of the large old room. She found herself close to the kitchen, where she could hear a low murmur of voices and the occasional clatter of pots and pans.
    She also found something else. A large wooden screen shielded the darkest corner from view. Trixie had noticed it as soon as she had entered the dining room. Now, with a sense of rising excitement, she stepped behind it. She saw at once that the paneling there appeared to be a slightly different color from its neighbors.
    “Look at this, Honey!” Trixie exclaimed excitedly, running her fingers lightly over the wood. “I just knew we’d find something. Be patient, now. It’ll probably take a while....”
    But it took no time at all. Waist-high from the floor, her searching fingers found a depression in the wood’s smooth surface. She lifted, and the panel slid