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we’re invited there for lunch,” Trixie added.
    “If she wants me, she can call me.”
    “Oh, Di!” Trixie wailed. The minute she heard Di hang up, Trixie dialed Honey’s number again. This time Honey was not in her room.
    The maid, Celia, was making beds and told Trixie to call the stable. “Honey is exercising Lady and Starlight.”
    Trixie knew that meant Jim was handling Jupiter, Strawberry, and Susie, the small black mare reserved for Trixie’s own use.
    Usually the young Beldens helped with the stable work in exchange for the privilege of riding the Wheeler horses at any time they chose. But due to their work at home, they hadn’t been to the stable for some days. Even Bobby was helping harvest the raspberries at Crabapple Farm. Trixie had been excused this one day only because it was the first full day of Hallie’s visit. There simply was no time for the horses, in spite of the coming Turf Show.
    Regan, the groom, wouldn’t like this interruption of the horses’ exercise, but he’d certainly understand if he knew Di’s feelings were hurt. Regan and Miss Trask were the Bob-Whites’ best friends. Trixie made the call to the stable.
    Again she had to wait. The chauffeur, Tom, answered. He shouted to Regan, who used his megaphone to call in Honey.
    Breathlessly Honey asked, “Is something wrong, Trixie? Didn’t Celia tell you that I—”
    “She told me,” Trixie said briefly. “Honey, something awful has happened. Di didn’t get an invitation, and she’s been crying.”
    “Oh!” Tenderhearted Honey drew a quivering breath of dismay. “There’s some mistake. I know Di was sent an invitation. I’ll call the house and have Miss Trask send another, right this minute. Di’s had enough trouble. We can’t allow her to be hurt. We simply can’t! I have to get back to the horses now. See you at lunch.”
    Even with a guest in the house and other people’s troubles on her mind, Trixie had work to do. To her surprise, Hallie worked hard. “I thought you had maids,” Trixie said.
    Hallie shrugged. “One. But you know my parents. Slave drivers!”
    “It runs in the Belden family,” Trixie retorted, as naturally as if she were working with Honey herself. On one of his many trips to the cooler with berries,
    Brian called Miss Trask. He asked her to excuse Mart and himself from lunch at Manor House. They both felt they should spend as much time as possible picking berries.
    Having prepared lunch for the stay-at-home Beldens, Trixie and Hallie biked up Glen Road. They rode slowly, watching for narrow wheel marks in the dust beside the road. About halfway between the lane and the Manor House turnoff, they saw something that made them start. A young, nearly bald man was pushing an empty wheelchair toward them.
    “Gleeps! That’s our wheelchair!” Trixie exclaimed.
    Hallie shrugged. “So what? He found it first.”
    Trying not to feel disappointed, Trixie said, “No sense calling Teed Moving Service now.”
    “No wheelchair, no reward,” Hallie agreed.
    “And no mystery,” Trixie added. But if that were true, why did she have the uneasy feeling that this man wished he hadn’t been seen? As they came face-to-face, she noticed a look of softness about the man that Mart would have called sissiness. Still, he was a broad-shouldered, rather tall man, clean-shaven and ordinary-looking.
    Trixie glanced back several times. Once she caught the man looking back at her.
    Again a prickle of uneasiness caused Trixie to scan the road. Glen Road itself had a hard surface and yielded little in the way of clues. But, there, some distance before the Wheeler mailbox, a wilted clematis vine lay across the edge of the road.

A Distorting Phone Call • 5

    TRIXIE BRAKED HER BICYCLE for a closer look at the wilted vine. This could be the spot where Jim and Hans had seen the chair. There was room for a wheelchair to have been hidden among those dusty bushes.
    On the other hand, last night’s fleeing thieves could have