Mystery of the Unwelcome Visitor Author:Helen Girvan Everyone knows what can happen to the best-laid plans, and for Kay Taber, life is typical the winter her architect grandfather suffers a heart attack. Instead of spending several precollege months in New York as she intended, she goes with D.D. to Farview. That's the name of the farmhouse he has remodeled in Connecticut, and it's just the plac... more »e for his convalescence. Of course, what happens there is not typical at all.
From the moment they arrive, on a raw February day, events are strange. Entering the driveway in the station wagon, Kay is positive she sees someone or something lurking beside the old apple tree near the terrace. That night she is equally certain of the presence of an intruder in the attic,.
The intruder, says Scotswoman Nellie, the housekeeper, could have been the menacing "toad of a mon" who called at the house the morning before, claiming to be the brother of the former tenant, demanding the right to look around for something she had leftr behind. The tenant obviously moved out in a great hurry, giving no one a forwarding address.
Mystery also surrounds the Bromley twins, Larry and Ross, local boys whom Kay knows from a previous visit to Farview. At that time Larry was accused of taking an antique knife belonging to his father. Although he denied the theft, the knife was never found. Now Kay finds her friendship for the brothers affected by their mutual antagonism as well as by her personal suspicions of one of them.
An unusual job assignment for the local newspaper, ice-skating, skiing, and pursuit of her serious interest to geology leave no lulls in the day for Kay, even as the main excitement of sleuthing builds to greater and greater pitch. With all clues tracked to mystery's end, she knows not only the true identity of the unwelcome visitor but that of the image she bears in her own heart.