Research Holp

Notes for #32 The Mystery of the Whispering Witch © 1980
Page #	Quote
14	Trixie: "This law would be about weekend homework. There shouldn't be any - especially on the weekend before Thanksgiving."
15	There was silence in the warm, fragrant kitchen of the old farmhouse. Its walls were hung with gleaming copper utensils. Treasured china was proudly displayed on plate racks and cup hooks. Looking after Bobby was usually a pleasure - unless she also had math homework to do.
16	Seventeen-year-old Brian was the most level-headed and even-tempered of the Belden children. Fifteen-year-old Mart loved to entertain anyone who would listen to him.
17	The Beldens enjoyed a quiet but comfortable life at the old farmhouse, situated near the east bank of the Hudson River in New York. Trixie and Honey, both fourteen. Honey was taller and slimmer than Trixie. Her real name was Madeleine.
20	Trixie found herself staring at the slight, disheveled figure of one of her classmates, Fay Franklin. Fay was new in the neighborhood having moved to Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson with her mother only a few weeks ago. Her short, dark curls were tumbled about her pretty face, which at the moment, seemed pale with shock. Fay: "It's my mother. She's had an accident, and our phone is out of order."
21	Trixie listened closely as Fay told them that her mother worked as a housekeeper for one of the local residents.
22	Bobby: "Mart told me a scary story about a mean ol' witch who used to live in a big ol' house around here."
24	Mart: "The witch wiggled her fingers and said: 'Abracadabra, and hair of dog. Bat's wings and spiders. Heh-heh! You're a frog!' And she turned all the little boys into green frogs. They had to go hopping off into Martin's Marsh forever."
27	Lisgard House had fascinated Trixie for as long as she could remember. Situated close to Martin's Marsh, it was surrounded by iron railings and locked gates. It was true that at one time, a witch was supposed to have lived in the old mansion. The original house, with the witch inside it, had been burned. And the mansion that had been rebuilt on the site was supposed to be haunted by Sarah Sligo's ghost.
28	The last Lisgard of them all, old Caleb, had been the worst of them. A mean-spirited and short-tempered man, he had been a recluse. Trixie knew that the house had been inherited by a nephew-in-law, Lewis Gregory.
32	The two-girls found themselves standing in a long, dimly lit passageway. It's dark-paneled walls were gloomy and forbidding.
33	Fay: "I'll have to direct them around to the back. They can't get in the front way. Those gates are locked, and I don't have the key. "Trixie: Who's got it?" Fay: "Our odd-job man, Zeke."
35	Mrs. Franklin: "We were living in New York City until recently, but I needed a job badly. I'm a widow."
37	Fay: "There's a lot of valuable antiques here."
42	Honey: "Zeke Collins. He lives on the grounds. Fay says he often snoops around."
45	Fay: "Old Mr. Lisgard kept a lot of the rooms shut up."
47	Honey: "Isn't this a Picasso? It looks like the real thing!" Fay: "It is. The picture is just about the only thing Mr. Gregory brought with him when he moved in here. A lot of things in this house are worth a lot of money. Most of the furniture has been here for such a long time that the pieces have become antiques."
48	Honey: "I know you don't like the furniture, but it is very valuable. I wonder if it's insured." Fay: "Yes, it's all insured."
55	Honey: "There was once a young woman named Sarah Sligo. Some people thought she was weird because she wore a tall, black hat and one of those billowy black cloaks that reach almost to the ground."
56	Trixie: "One year everything was going wrong for the towns people of Sleepyside." Fay: "When the children died, they blamed Sarah Sligo?"
57	Trixie: "The people were past reason. They accused her of everything they could think of, and when they had finished, they locked her up in that little room. They boarded up the window so she couldn't get out. And then they set fire to the house."
58	Honey: "Sarah Sligo swore she would get her revenge. She placed a curse on this house and on everyone who would ever live in it." Fay: "I know that the first Lisgard who ever lived here went walking in the marsh one day and was never seen again."
63	A strange figure stood by the back door. It wore a tall, pointed hat. It wore a black cloak that reached almost to the floor.
67	Trixie sighed. Why didn't she ever give anyone else credit for a little common sense? Why did she always assume that she was the only one who had the bright ideas?
71	As if from a great distance, she (Trixie) could hear the sound of marching feet, and the sound of angry voices. Fists pounded at the front door.
72	They were angry voices - hateful and hatefilled. Trixie: It's almost as if we're reliving the death of Sarah Sligo!"
73	Trixie: "We seem to be locked in!"
74	A curl of black smoke was billowing toward them from beneath the door.
79	A haze of lingering smoke hovered outside Fay's bedroom door. But it was the only sign that anything at all had happened that night.
80	Fay: "I'm possessed."
81	Trixie: "We'll walk home, and from here on out, Fay, you're staying at Crabapple Farm until your mother's out of the hospital."
82	Shaggy black eyebrows hung over a pair of cold gray eyes. The figure's face, long creased with small wrinkles, was topped by an untidy mane of white hair that fell in ringlets over his ears.
83	Zeke Collins, the odd-job man at Lisgard House, had been a resident of Sleepyside for as long as she could remember.
88	Trixie: "I think someone's trying to scare Fay into having a nervous breakdown."
100	Trixie remembered how she and Honey had bought Susie for Miss Trask.
103	Regan: "There's been plenty of gossip about it lately and some of it was started by Zeke Collins. He was there when the old man died - at least, that's what Zeke's been telling everyone."
106	Honey: "Fay thinks the witch's spirit has found a new home. Fay thinks that she is becoming Sarah Sligo."
108	Fay: "I don't blame any of you if you think I'm making the whole thing up."
109	Di: "We don't think you're making it up. At least I don't. I've read a lot of stuff like this - where people get possessed by evil spirits." Fay: "Mr. Gregory hired her (her mother) in New York.
110	Fay: "It would be stuff like vases moved out of place when I knew I'd put them somewhere else. Once I found all the saucepans and kettles piled in the middle of the kitchen floor."
111	Fay: "I thought it was Zeke Collins. I thought he might be trying to scare Mother and me away from the house for some reason."
112	Fay: Mother's convinced that Zeke's got something hidden on the grounds."
113	Fay: "I began to have dreams - nightmares and Sarah would be in them."
115	Fay: "I can summon the powers of darkness! When I am Sarah, I can do anything!"
120	One woman carried a portable television camera on her shoulder. Her partner, a young man with flashing white teeth and dimples in his cheeks, was already thrusting a microphone toward Fay. Paul Trent, a newspaper reporter for the Sleepyside Sun, scribbled furiously in his notebook.
126	Trixie was busy talking to Mariellen Hanrahan, the only Volunteen on duty.
128	Dr. Ferris: "Mr. Lisgard had suffered from high blood pressure for years. I warned him that he mustn't have any excitement at all, but he didn't listen. One night he lost his temper with his housekeeper. Caleb had a stroke and died.
130	Dr. Ferris: "In the last months of his life, Caleb made some pretty bad investments. Young Mr. Gregory inherited a white elephant of a house and no money to run it with."
134	Brian: "We've been booked for the school's Thanksgiving play, and rehearsals start this afternoon. Jim is playing the part of Miles Standish, I'm going to be bashful John, and one of Mart's classmates is playing the part of Priscilla." Mart: "I'm the stage manager."
136	Regan had never failed to mention that Lady had a habit of "blowing herself up" when she was being saddled. Her cinch had to be tightened after riding a short distance; otherwise the saddle loosened and slipped. Only once had Trixie forgotten. But Regan hadn't. He had not enjoyed watching her being tumbled helplessly from the dapple gray mare's back onto the hard ground below.
137	Fay: "My mother had a job on a ranch one time. The school I attended was pretty far away, so the only way I could get there was on horseback. Mr. Larson, the ranch owner, helped me. He taught me to ride and lent me a horse, too. I still miss old Smoky."
139	Trixie had never seen the other man before. His long, thin face wore a serious and intent expression. A long cape hung from his shoulders.
140	Mr. Gregory: "This man is none other than Mr. Simon Hunter, the famous psychic investigator." Honey: "I've heard they're sort of like ghost detectives. They investigate psychic phenomena." Trixie remembered his name. It was Ed Gaffey, from Sleepyside's small television station. The Belden's seldom watched him.
145	Mr. Hunter: "It could have been your friend's psychic energy that has attracted Sarah Sligo's spirit."
146	Mr. Hunter: "It is well known that spirits often search until they find a teen-ager. How old are you, Fay?" Fay: "Fourteen."
149	Mr. Gregory: "Mr. Hunter is not only a psychic investigator, but he's also a medium himself. He communicates with the spirit world. And he's promised me he'll try to get in touch with Sarah's spirit, in order to try to turn her away from her evil purposes."
153	Di: "You'll soon learn that our motto is 'all for one and one for all.' Well, if it isn't, it should be." Mr. Hunter: "And you say she (Sarah Sligo) was burned to death on Thanksgiving night?" Fay: "And she was also born on Thanksgiving day thirty-four years before that."
154	Fay: "Not only that, but it's a well-known fact that a person who dies a violent death on the day of her birth is doomed to haunt the scene forever."
155	Mr. Hunter: "Sarah can't rest, and she's becoming more and more active as that date approaches." Trixie: You mean something's going to happen this Thanksgiving night? Why - but that's next Thursday!"
157	Fay: "Sarah died on November the 26th." Di: "Today is Saturday, the 21st."
164	Di: "Didn't Fay tell us that Lisgard House was full of genuine antiques? I saw furniture, but it's not what you think. Most of it's fake."
166	Miss Trask: "Your parents have taken Bobby to visit Santa in one of Croton's department stores."
167	Di: "I forgot that the nursemaids took them to Ecklund's last Saturday."
171	Trixie: "Ever since old Caleb died, he's been stealing the antique furniture. He's had clever fakes made, and he's put them in place of the real stuff."
172	Trixie: "Zeke Collins, that's who."
174	Trixie: "Remember that dumb tape Mart's got? What it is really, is just a whole lot of sound effects spliced together. The first time that Mart played it, it scared Moms and me silly."
175	Trixie: "As for the figure of that ghost I saw ... I think it was all done with a film projector."
188	... watching Honey store her bike back in its proper place in the spacious garage.
191	... followed her friends slowly into Honey's living room. She glanced up at the ornate clock that sat in the middle of the Wheeler's mantlepiece.
193	Trixie: "What do you mean, silly tombstone?" Miss Trask: "I know for a fact that Zeke Collins made it himself."
194	The Bob-Whites guessed that even if Trixie's theories turned out to be incorrect, Kim would still believe that everything she did was right.
197	The study walls had been hung with some kind of floating black draperies. A table in the rooms center wore a black velvet cloth. At its head sat Mr. Hunter. He wore a dark cloak. His long, thin fingers held a crystal ball.
198	Mr. Gregory: "The man's (Zeke) a painter - an artist. All these years, he's been painting a monument to Lisgard House. He's been painting pictures on the walls of his cottage. He had an idea that one day the Sleepyside Historical Society would want to preserve that cottage as a museum."
199	Mr. Gregory: "He had an idea that I was going to sell the house and the grounds." Dan: "Was he afraid that if you sold the house and grounds that he'd be out of a job?" Mr. Gregory: "As to the business with the furniture, he (Zeke) flatly denies knowing anything about it."
203	Mr. Gregory: We can't call the fire department! It's too late! The old house is a goner!" Trixie: "I made the arrangements for the fire department to be called even before we arrived here tonight." Trixie: "It was Mr. Gregory himself!"
204	Trixie: "It all began when Mr. Gregory inherited that big old house. But he had no money, so he tried to sell it." Brian: "But no one would buy once Zeke told them his made-up history of the place." Trixie: "It was the ghost stories that gave Lewis Gregory his idea. He decided to have Sarah 'haunt' the place again. Then when the time was right, he was going to burn it down in order to collect the insurance money. But Gregory needed witnesses who could back up his story of how the fire started."
205	Trixie: "He'd already begun replacing the real antique furniture with the fake stuff. And then he hired Mrs. Franklin. He paid her a high salary so she wouldn't leave. And when Mr. Gregory thought the time was right he hired Mr. Hunter, who really was a psychic investigator - but a crooked one." Jim: "And when Gregory offered to pay him well for his services. Hunter agreed to help. He was prepared to swear in court that the house was genuinely haunted and that the evil spirits can prey on the living - in this case, Fay Franklin." Trixie: "Once the crooks saw the effect the ghostly happenings were having on Fay, they got the idea of blaming her for starting the fire that night."
206	Trixie: "He (Gregory) used a tape machine to provide all the sound effects." Zeke: "And he used my smudge pots. He must have got them from my greenhouse." Trixie: "And with a fan he blew the smoke under Fay's bedroom door."
207	Mart: "Why didn't Gregory just incinerate Lisgard House and tell everyone that it must have been kids playing with matches?" Di: "Sgt. Molinson has found out that Gregory had already used that story before. It was a warehouse that was burned several years ago. But the police think Lewis Gregory didn't dare tell the same story twice."
208	Jim: "I still don't understand how Mom's portrait helped our girl sleuth figure everything out." Trixie: "I looked at it and thought of the Picasso. I remembered it wasn't in the hall when we went to get Fay's clothes. I realized that everything I'd suspected about Zeke could apply to Mr. Gregory, especially if Hunter were a crook. The picture of the blue clown was the only thing in the house he liked. And he sure didn't want it to burn in the fire he intended to start."
209	Trixie: "I called the only person who might be vitally interested in saving Lisgard House. I called Zeke Collins." Di: "The Historical Society has seen Mr. Collins's work. The paintings in the cottage are beautiful, and the Society is determined to save them." Honey: "As for Lisgard House, parts of the downstairs were badly burned in the fire. But a group of local businessmen, including my day, and Di's dad, are going to repair it and buy it and turn it over to the Society. Zeke is going to be kept on as artist in residence. We have a surprise for you, Mrs. Franklin. Di's father has found you another job - on a lovely ranch, with lots of horses, Fay."
210	Honey: "What's more, the insurance company is paying us a reward for saving Lisgard House." Trixie: "And the Bob-Whites want you to have the money for Fay's education." She (Trixie) remembered the strange figure who had twice warned her to be careful. Who had it been? Had the real whispering witch been doing her best to protect what had once been hear earthly home? "You can rest now, Sarah." And she had a sudden feeling that she'd been heard.