The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

Your TRIXIE BELDEN Library

1 The Secret of the Mansion

2 The Red Trailer Mystery

3 The Gatehouse Mystery

4 The Mysterious Visitor

5 The Mystery Off Glen Road

6 Mystery in Arizona

7 The Mysterious Code

8 The Black Jacket Mystery

9 The Happy Valley Mystery

10 The Marshland Mystery

11 The Mystery at Bob-White Cave

12 The Mystery of the Blinking Eye

13 The Mystery on Cobbett’s Island

14 The Mystery of the Emeralds

15 Mystery on the Mississippi

16 The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

17 The Mystery of the Uninvited Guest

18 The Mystery of the Phantom Grasshopper

19 The Secret of the Unseen Treasure

20 The Mystery Off Old Telegraph Road
(new)

21 The Mystery of the Castaway Children
(new)

22 Mystery at Meads Mountain
(new)

Copyright © MCMLXX, MCMLXXVII by

Western Publishing Company, Inc.

All rights reserved. Produced in U.S.A.

GOLDEN, GOLDEN PRESS®, and TRIXIE BELDEN® are trademarks of Western Publishing Company, Inc.

No part of this book may be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from the publisher.

0-307-21542-3

All names, characters, and events in this story are entirely fictitious.

Discovery at the Marsh • 1

HONK THE HORN!” Trixie Belden called excitedly and put her hand over Brian s tanned fingers. With an older brother’s tolerance, he smiled and stopped his battered, stripped-down car in front of the Manor House, the huge Wheeler estate at Sleepy-side-on-the-Hudson.

“If I know Honey and Jim,” he said, “they’ve been looking out of a window for half an hour, rackets in hand, waiting for us.”

“Maybe,” Trixie said and jumped from the car. “They should be coming around the house right now if they heard the car.”

Mart, almost her twin, swung his slim legs over the doorless backseat. “Heck, they can hear it the minute Brian backs out of the garage, half a mile away.”

“Hi!” they called to Tom, the Wheeler chauffeur, who was washing down the station wagon.

“Hi, yourselves!” Tom answered. Anyone could tell from the broad grin on his face that he liked the “Belden kids,” as he called them—especially Trixie, his boss’s daughter’s best friend. It was so much fun to tease her. She had a temper, although her short, sandy curls and big blue eyes belied it.

“I’m trying to clean and polish this car so it’ll look just the way you want it,” Tom said. “I didn’t think it would take long for you to get here, once you heard the news.”

“What news?” Trixie asked breathlessly. “Hi, Honey! Hi, Jim! Are you going on a trip? Is that the news?”

Honey, a tall, graceful blonde just Trixie’s age, came out of the house, smiling, followed by her older brother, Jim.

Tom threw down the hose in disgust. “Do you mean you Belden kids don’t know what I’m talking about? Gosh, Honey, I sure opened my big mouth. Your dad will be plenty mad at me.”

“No, he won’t,” said Honey, laughing. “Daddy never gets plenty mad’ at anyone, without a very good reason.”

“Then what did Tom mean?” Trixie insisted.

“Aren’t we going to play tennis this morning?”

Jim just laughed. “Take a look in the garage!”

He watched Trixie, Brian, and Mart as their eyes widened in wonder at the brand-new Continental sedan, shiny and blue, glittering with chrome.

“Gol, it’s neat!” Mart said, awed.

“Cool!” Brian echoed.

“Isn’t she a beauty?” Tom asked, laying his hands lovingly on the hood. “She’ll sure leave you far behind in the old station wagon, Jim.”

“Are you going to drive the station wagon now, Jim?” Trixie asked with great interest.

“Not only drive it.” Jim grew an inch taller before their eyes. “I’m part owner!”

“Is Honey the other part?” Trixie asked quickly. Then she added sadly, “She can't even drive.”

“I’m one of the owners,” Honey said excitedly. “You are, too, Trixie, and Brian and Mart and Diana and Dan!”

She giggled at the questions in their eyes. “Daddy is giving our station wagon to the Bob-Whites of the Glen.”

“He’s doing
what?”
Trixie asked, unbelieving. “Look at what Mart’s doing!”

Mart, out of sheer joy at the news, turned cartwheel after cartwheel down the concrete drive.

At Trixie’s words he stopped, dusted himself off, and stamped his foot, frustrated. “Why am I so steamed up? I won’t be old enough to drive for another year. But, say—” he grinned impishly—“I sure can order my own limousine.”

He turned to Jim, opened the station wagon’s rear door with a flourish, stepped in, and commanded, “Home, James!”

The others laughed delightedly, ran around the car, patted it, and exclaimed, hardly daring to believe this glorious car could really be their very own.

Reddy, the Beldens’ Irish setter, who had followed them from home, raced madly around the Bob-Whites, then skidded suddenly to a stop, tail wagging, wondering about the excitement and loving it all.

“Let’s take a spin down Glen Road,” Trixie called, “and sound the horn all the way. Beep! Beep! Honk! Honk! Come on, gang. Who’ll drive, Jim or Brian?”

You drive,” Jim told his friend generously and opened the door to the driver's seat.

“Nope...
you“
Brian protested. “I have to wheel my old jalopy out of the drive, anyway.”

He gave his old car a loving push, remembering the agony they all went through to earn the fifty dollars it had cost months before. “We’ll have to stop at Di’s, then hunt up Dan and tell him. Hi, Regan!”

Regan, the Wheelers’ groom and one of the Bob-Whites’ very best friends, came out of the stable and over to the station wagon.

Because Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler had to be away much of the time, Regan kept Honey and Jim in line. He extended his advice to include the Belden young people, too, when they were around the Wheeler estate. None of them resented his discipline. It always was just.

They didn’t resent it now when, as they were about to take off in their new car, Regan said soberly, “The car’s swell. I’m glad you have it—but
it
doesn’t have to be exercised. Inside the stable”— he gestured with his thumb—‘I have five riding horses begging to be taken out... pawing and restless. That’s the first order of business. Right, kids? Don’t forget the Turf Show next month!” Reluctantly but understandingly, they nodded their heads.
Any other day,
Trixie thought,
just any other day
....

“Okay, Regan,” she said aloud as they all walked toward the stable. “You win. But, jeepers, it’ll be forever before we get to try out our new car. When we come back, we’ll have to groom the horses, clean the tack—”

“One thing at a time, Miss Fidget!” A smile curved around Regan’s mouth. “I just might help.”

“You nearly always do,” Trixie said, ashamed. “Shall I ride Susie today?” She stroked the little black mare’s soft nose.

“If you will, please, Trixie. You ride well enough now, though, that you could almost have your choice of horses.” Regan never was lavish with his praise, and Trixie colored.

“You can’t ride Jupiter!” Jim warned as he saddled the mettlesome black gelding. “Brian’s the only one who rides him, except me.”

“You forget Daddy,” Honey reminded him. “Jupiter’s really his horse.” She swept her hand around, indicating the walls of the tack room. “Look at the ribbons he’s taken for jumping! Oh, well, I’ll take Lady, any day.” At the sound of Honey’s voice, the beautiful gray mare raised her head.

“That leaves Starlight for Brian and Strawberry for me,” Mart said. “Go back home, Reddy! Home!” He might as well have spoken to the wind. Reddy ran yapping into the shrubbery, only to come galumphing back, mouth drooling, brown eyes begging:
You do want me, don't you?

Honey laughed. “You may as well give in, Mart Patch always goes. He’s Jim's shadow.” The springer spaniel, hearing his name, upped his big ears and whimpered. Honey bent to stroke his wriggling body. “The dogs love the woods as much as we do.”

“Shall we go past Di’s house first and tell her the news about the car, then pick up Dan at Mr. Maypenny’s cottage?”

The woods, a huge game preserve, was only a small part of the Wheeler estate with its private lake for swimming, its fine stable, and its paddock. The preserve was the place the Bob-Whites liked best to ride. It was deep, dark, and mysterious, with trails crossing and recrossing. There were parts of it, still unexplored, where deer and foxes roamed. On rare occasions even a catamount found its way down from the Catskills. The west boundary ended only ten feet from the edge of the great bluffs that hung over the Hudson River.

Jim rode ahead as they left Manor House. The others followed him down the path that would take them past Crabapple Farm, the Beldens’ clapboarded old home, which was wrapped cozily in orchards ripe with fruit. It was a modest home compared to the large estates which had grown up around it over the years. Three generations of Beldens had lived here, adding rooms as needed. Now it sprawled, gracious and hospitable, in the midst of rose and vegetable gardens, chicken runs, and berry patches.

From inside the farm’s white picket fence, Bobby, the youngest Belden, a first grader, waved as the Bob-Whites passed. He whistled to Reddy, who ignored his little master to follow the horses.

“I’ll be glad when Bobby is old enough to ride with us,” Trixie thought as she looked back at her small brother’s dejected form. “It doesn’t seem right....”

In the driveway of Diana Lynch’s great stone home, they reined in their horses and whistled the clear club call:
bob, bob-white!

Around the comer of the exercise yard, a silver and gold palomino raised his head and whinnied. Diana, a beautiful girl with shining black shoulder-length hair, wearing tan jodhpurs, answered the whistle:
bob-white! bob, bob-white!
and ran out.

“I knew you were coming. Miss Trask called me.”

“She did?” Honey asked. “She fixed some sandwiches for us to take along. Isn't she a dear? Did she tell you anything?”

“Just that you were riding and wanted me to go with you…. I've saddled Sunny. Say... what
could
Miss Trask have told me? Why are you all grinning? Tell me!”

Mart urged Strawberry over closer to Diana and brushed his hand nonchalantly over his short, sandy hair. “It’s nothing... really nothing... it’s just....”

“That the Bob-Whites have their very own car!” Trixie exploded. “A station wagon!”

“Now, where in the world would we ever get anything like that? You have to be fooling. I’m not old enough to drive. You aren’t, Trixie. Honey isn’t, either, or Mart. Where would we get a car?” she repeated. “Where?”

“Honey and Jim’s father,” Trixie said dramatically. “He has a marvelous new Lincoln Continental and has given his old car to the Bob-Whites. Did you ever hear of anything like that? Jim’s going to paint our club name on the door. Who’ll drive it? Why, Jim and Brian, for now, and Dan will learn. But it belongs to every one of us! Oh, hurry, Di. Were going to the gamekeeper’s cottage to tell Dan the news, too.”