There’s a new face in Sleepyside, and Trixie Belden is sure this stranger is up to no good. Too bad no one else believes her. But if anyone can get to the truth of this visitor’s real motives, it’s detective Trixie! Trixie Belden hasn’t talked to Diana Lynch in a long time—not since her family got incredibly rich…and snobby. But the week before Halloween, Trixie and her best friend, Honey, spot Diana looking a little down, and Trixie knows it is time to put old grievances in the past. Except the past is exactly the problem for Diana. Her long-lost uncle Monty recently arrived from Arizona, and Diana is less than thrilled about the reunion. Monty won’t stop pulling pranks, he is eager to buy lavish presents, and he constantly embarrasses Diana in front of all of her friends. Worst of all, he’s insisting that Diana host a Halloween party. Monty may have fooled the adults, but Trixie is convinced he’s wearing a costume of his own. Can Trixie unmask Uncle Monty’s tricks and prove he is an imposter—or will Di be the one who is sent packing? In the 1940s, Julie Campbell was running her own literary agency when Western Publishing put out a call for talented authors to write mystery series for kids. Julie proposed the Trixie Belden series and wrote the first six titles herself, but books seven through thirty-nine were written by a variety of writers all under the pseudonym Kathryn Kenny. Chapter 1 An Unhappy Friend Trixie and Honey linked arms as they left their home room. “Oh, woe,” Trixie moaned. “Homework on a Friday. It’s not fair. It’ll ruin the whole weekend.” She was a sturdy girl of thirteen with short sandy curls and round blue eyes. “Every Oc-tober since I learned to write, the English teacher has given us the same old as-signment.” Trixie frowned, looked down her nose, and said in a high-pitched voice: “‘Now, children, I want you to tell me in not less than two hundred words what you did this summer.’ Phooey! If I hand in a hundred words, I’ll be doing well. And they’re all sure to be spelled wrong and not punctuated properly.” Honey Wheeler, who was Trixie’s best friend, laughed. She had earned her nick-name because of her golden-brown hair, and she had wide hazel eyes. Although they were the same age, Honey was taller than Trixie. “Trixie, you couldn’t possi-bly tell about everything we did this summer in a million words,” she said. “I thought we’d divide up our exciting experiences. Since he’s my adopted brother now, I’ll tell how we found Jim up at the old mansion and lost him, and then found him again when we solved the red trailer mystery. You could tell about the dia-mond we found in the gatehouse, and the thieves who stole it from us, and how you helped the police capture them.” Trixie sniffed. “Telling about something is one thing; writing about it is another. I never could write about things and make them sound interesting--not even when I was very interested in them myself. My fingers ache at the very thought of holding a pencil long enough to explain all about the gatehouse and the diamond and the thieves and everything. And how the gatehouse is our secret clubhouse now. Of course, I’d never tell that part of the story, anyway.” “I should hope not.” Although it was the last week of October, it was a very warm day. Honey pushed her bangs back from her forehead with her free hand. “You shouldn’t even talk about our club in the corridor when so many kids are milling around.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Suppose someone guessed that the initials B.W.G. stand for Bob-Whites of the Glen? Oh, Trixie, wasn’t it fun the first day of school when we wore our special red jackets and just about baffled every-one?” Trixie nodded. “I don’t know how you ever made those jackets so quickly, Honey. And as for cross-stitching B.W.G. on the backs in white, well that baffled me. As far as I’m concerned, all sewing is cross-stitching because every time I look a needle in the eye I feel cross.” Honey hugged Trixie’s arm. “As long as we’re neighbors, you don’t even have to think about sewing. I’ll always do your mending for you, Trix. I just love to sew, and mending is no trouble at all.” The girls lived on Glen Road which was about two miles from the junior-senior high school in the village of Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson. They and Jim Frayne and Trixie’s older brothers, Brian and Mart, traveled to and from school by bus. The Manor House, which was the name of the Wheelers’ huge estate, included acres of rolling lawn and woodlands, a big lake, and a stable of horses. It formed the west-ern boundary of the Beldens’ Crabapple Farm, which nestled down in a hollow. Honey’s home was luxurious and very beautiful, but Trixie preferred the little white frame house where she lived with her three brothers and their parents. “I hope we’ll always be neighbors,” she said to Honey. “I would have died of lone-liness last summer if your father hadn’t bought the Manor House. There was just no one around to talk to