_The Famous_ JUDY BOLTON _Mystery Stories_
By MARGARET SUTTON
_In Order of Publication_
THE VANISHING SHADOW
THE HAUNTED ATTIC
THE INVISIBLE CHIMES
SEVEN STRANGE CLUES
THE GHOST PARADE
THE YELLOW PHANTOM
THE MYSTIC BALL
THE VOICE IN THE SUITCASE
THE MYSTERIOUS HALF CAT
THE RIDDLE OF THE DOUBLE RING
THE UNFINISHED HOUSE
THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR
THE NAME ON THE BRACELET
THE CLUE IN THE PATCHWORK QUILT
THE MARK ON THE MIRROR
THE SECRET OF THE BARRED WINDOW
THE RAINBOW RIDDLE
THE LIVING PORTRAIT
THE SECRET OF THE MUSICAL TREE
THE WARNING ON THE WINDOW
THE CLUE OF THE STONE LANTERN
THE SPIRIT OF FOG ISLAND
THE BLACK CAT’S CLUE
THE FORBIDDEN CHEST
THE HAUNTED ROAD
THE CLUE IN THE RUINED CASTLE
THE TRAIL OF THE GREEN DOLL
THE HAUNTED FOUNTAIN
THE CLUE OF THE BROKEN WING
THE PHANTOM FRIEND
THE DISCOVERY AT THE DRAGON’S MOUTH
[Illustration: The flashlight sent a weird circle of light ahead of him]
_A Judy Bolton Mystery_
THE TRAIL OF THE
GREEN DOLL
By
_Margaret Sutton_
Grosset & Dunlap
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
© GROSSET & DUNLAP 1956
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_To My Granddaughter Tina
On Her Tenth Birthday
With the Gift of the Green Doll_
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I “Tourists Welcome” 1
II The Talking Tree 9
III A Puzzling Robbery 17
IV A Startling Experiment 23
V An Urgent Request 30
VI An Empty Pocketbook 38
VII More Puzzles 46
VIII The Wonders of Magic 52
IX A Strange Mistake 60
X Another Voice? 66
XI At the Caretaker’s Cottage 73
XII The Game of Secrets 79
XIII Too Many Clues 89
XIV The Missing Jade 96
XV Secrets of the East 103
XVI The Missing Children 108
XVII More Secrets 118
XVIII Sita Speaks 125
XIX More Revelations 133
XX The Statue Commands 143
XXI Under the Vault 152
XXII Blackberry’s Discovery 160
XXIII Stage Magic 167
XXIV Real Magic 171
The Trail of the Green Doll
CHAPTER I
“Tourists Welcome”
“It looks nice, doesn’t it, Judy?”
Honey was surveying with pride the sign she had just finished lettering.
“TOURISTS WELCOME,” it said. That was all. But the sign was in the shape
of an arrow. It pointed toward the private road that crossed Dry Brook
and continued on through the beech grove and up a little hill to the
house Judy had inherited from her grandparents. It was a simple
farmhouse with a wide front porch. Never, until this moment, had it been
known as a tourist home.
“It looks beautiful,” Judy agreed. “I wonder who our first tourist will
be. This is going to be exciting. Wait till Peter hears—”
“Haven’t you told him?” Peter’s sister questioned in surprise.
“How could I?” Judy laughed. “He wasn’t here when I thought of it. I was
walking through all those spare rooms we have, and the house seemed sort
of empty. Then you came, and I thought of asking you to letter the sign.
It ought to attract someone. There aren’t any other tourist places along
this road.”
“That’s true,” agreed Honey, “but isn’t it a little—well, dangerous?”
“To take in tourists? Lots of people do it,” declared Judy.
“I know,” Honey objected, “but I can’t help suspecting you of some
secret motive. This isn’t a trap for an escaped federal prisoner, is it?
What did you do? Peek at the FBI files?”
“Of course not!” Judy was indignant at the suggestion. Like most
redheads, she was quick to flare up. But she cooled down just as
quickly. “I couldn’t look at them even if I wanted to,” she now informed
Honey. “They’re kept at the agency in the Farringdon courthouse. Peter
is supposed to work there instead of at home for some reason.”
“You couldn’t be the reason, could you?” teased Honey.
“Because I’ve helped him solve a few mysteries? Why shouldn’t I?” Judy
retorted. “What are FBI wives supposed to do if not help their
husbands?”
“They help them in other ways,” Honey began. “They stay home and take
care of their families. They do secretarial work—”
“Not according to Peter,” Judy interrupted. “Oh, I know he calls me his
secretary, but I’m not really in the employ of the government the way he
is. Sometimes he asks me to type reports on things I already know about,
or write a letter. As for taking care of the family, we haven’t any
unless you count Blackberry, and cats take care of themselves.”
“You do have the house—”
“Yes, and I may as well make use of it,” Judy broke in. “This may be
exciting—”
“Judy,” Honey interrupted, “do you see what I see?”
“A car with three men in it! Oh dear! I hadn’t counted on so many!” Judy
exclaimed as the car came to a stop beside them.
At first both girls were dismayed. Gray eyes met blue ones in a moment
of panic. Then Honey recognized one of the men as a customer who had
ordered signs to be lettered at the studio in Farringdon where she
worked as an artist.
“That one won’t want a room,” she whispered. “He lives around here. His
name’s Montrose, I think.”
“What about the others?” Judy whispered back.
For some reason that she could not name, she was suddenly suspicious of
them. None of the men introduced themselves. After inquiring briefly
about the sign, they piled out of the expensive car they were driving
and asked Judy and Honey to show them the house. The two girls started
down the road, hardly knowing what to expect. They had crossed Dry Brook
and were passing through the beech grove when a sudden rustling of the
wind in the trees overhead made them look up. The sky had darkened
although it was still early in the day.
“It’s weird,” Judy whispered. “See that pinkish haze over there? It
makes the sun look red. And the wind sounds—strange.”
“It is sort of spooky,” Honey replied. “I think a storm is blowing up.”
“We need it,” Judy said. “The ground is too dry. Maybe it’s just dust
that makes the sky look pink.”
“Pink!” exclaimed Honey. “It looks green in the other direction, and I
don’t like it. There’s something unnatural about the weather lately.
Haven’t you noticed it yourself?”
“I haven’t thought much about it,” replied Judy.
She could tell Honey was chattering because she was nervous, and said no
more. The three men were now exploring the grove, spreading out in all
directions.
“That a barn over there?” one man inquired.
Before Judy could answer, another of the men, who had a white scar
across his cheek, said, “Anything in it?”
“Just a saddle horse and one cow,” Judy began. “We like fresh milk.”
A stout man, the shortest of the three, chuckled.
“Your dad ain’t much of a farmer, is he?”
“My dad doesn’t live here,” Judy said. “There’s just my husband and
myself—”
“Your husband? Now you are kidding. You girls don’t either one of you
look more than sixteen. Who’s this other girl if you’re the lady of the
house?”
“I’m her sister-in-law,” Honey said. “I don’t live here in Dry Brook
Hollow. I live in Farringdon.”
“You work there, too, don’t you?” inquired the man she knew as Mr.
Montrose. “Weren’t you the girl who took my order for signs?”
“I was,” Honey admitted. “I lettered them, too. But I’m not working
today, because it’s Saturday.”
“I see. You’re just here on a visit—”
“Anybody else visit?” one of the other men interrupted.
“Of course,” Judy replied a little impatiently. “Lots of people do. My
friends, my parents, my brother—”
“Anybody else today?”
“Oh, you mean tourists. Not yet. We just put up the sign.”
“Perhaps the young lady would like to show us what she’s advertising,”
the man Honey recognized suggested.
“Why, certainly,” Judy began, but the short, stout man interrupted.
“It ain’t secluded enough for what we want,” he said to the driver.
“What we had in mind was a place in the upper price brackets, not a
tourist home.”
“We’ll have a look, anyway.”
But Judy had changed her mind about showing them the house and said so.
“I think you’ve made a mistake. My house isn’t for sale,” she informed
them.
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the wind. It
was almost moaning. Judy had never heard it make such a strange noise
before.
“The place ain’t ha’nted, is it?” the stout man asked.
“It might be,” the third man said, and Judy couldn’t tell whether or not
he was serious.
“Maybe we can find another place farther out in the country,” the short
man suggested.
“You’re headed for a town right now,” Honey told them. “Roulsville is
just a few miles below here. Then comes a long stretch of state forest
land—”
“National forest,” Judy corrected her.
The tallest man in the group looked at her sharply.
“Does it make any difference?”
“Why, n-no,” she stammered, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under his
scrutiny. “There are both state and national forest reserves just west
of here. I don’t know where one ends and the other begins, really. I
didn’t mean—”
Judy stopped abruptly. A voice that seemed to come from the trees
themselves had said, with unmistakable urgency:
“_Don’t look for it!_”