Read Online The Mystery on the Mississippi by Julie Campbell - Free Book Online Page A

name. I was one pretty chesty kid when I got my first license. It was up to me, then, to steer my boat safely through the channel into Memphis port. I was a scared kid then, too. Now I’ve also got licenses on the Ohio, the Missouri, the Tennessee, and every tributary that flows into the near three-thousand-mile length of the Mississippi—the Ouachita, Bayou Mason, Yazoo, Sunflower.... When the diesel engines came on, I was whipped for a while. Now I’m all right, but I still like the churn of the paddle wheels and the lonesome call of a steamboat whistle on a winter night.”

    In their cabin, an hour or so before they were to leave the boat at Cairo, Trixie told Honey, “Of course, we know, both of us, that this business on board the Catfish Princess ties in with Pierre Lontard.”
    “Sure it does,” Honey agreed, “but how?”
    “I’m not sure. He was on board. That I know, even if Captain Martin doesn’t think anyone jumped overboard. He was after my purse and those papers. How he came to be on board, I don’t know. Dan swears someone jumped over him and ran across the deck. There are only three staterooms in our corridor—ours and the boys’ and the Aguileras’.”
    “That’s right. And that tray Mr. Aguilera was carrying still sounds suspicious to me.”
    “Another thing, too, Honey. Why did Mrs. Aguilera seem so interested in my purse when I stumbled out there on the barge?”
    “Well, you can forget any idea you may have that she made you stumble. Didn’t she risk her own life to pull you back? No, I think she’s perfectly all right.
    She’s been so kind and friendly. Maybe her husband’s a queer one, but I don’t even have any reason to say that. Captain Martin never questioned their explanation of the tray.”
    “You must remember that Captain Martin doesn’t know anything at all about the Lontard business. I was going to tell him, till I remembered how much fun he made of our detective agency.”
    “He didn’t mean anything by that. Most grownups don’t take us seriously till they know of the good work we’ve done—you, especially.”
    “Maybe so. Something else bothers me. I wish Mrs. Aguilera hadn’t heard me give the Bob-White whistle.”
    “Well, it really is supposed to be a secret. If that bobwhite hadn’t whistled from a nearby field on shore...” Honey mused.
    “I know. And when I heard it, I just answered, without thinking. After I’d done it, I felt sort of silly and thought I had to say something. I wish I weren’t so gabby.”
    “You’re not,” Honey said warmly. “You’re just friendly. Everybody loves you for it. As for worrying about Mrs. Aguilera—I wish you wouldn’t. I think I know people pretty well, and I’d trust her with anything. She’s so motherly. Now the boys are calling us. Hear them?”
    “Yes. We must be getting pretty close to Cairo.
    And, Honey, you may think Mrs. Aguilera is motherly and all that, but she’s not one bit like my mom. Say, I kind of hate to get to the end of our trip, don’t you?”
    “Kind of,” Honey said slowly.
    Trixie opened the bag, shoved her pajamas and slippers inside, and added a kit with her brush, comb, and lipstick. “I know just what you mean. When Pierre Lontard jumped overboard—and I’d stake my life that’s who it was—then our work on board this towboat seemed to be finished.”
    She stopped packing, looked intently at Honey, and continued, “This may be the biggest case we’ve ever worked on —if we can prove those papers in my purse have something to do with the space program, and if we can follow up that Pierre Lontard. Jeepers, Honey, think what it will mean to our agency. Do you have anything to put in this bag?”
    “A few things.” Honey paused a moment. “Aren’t the engines slowing down?”
    “Yes. We must be at Cairo.”
    “Then we must hurry. Captain Martin said he’d have a harbor boat come out to take us to shore. They aren’t going up to the wharf with the Princess. All