The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace Page 10

  “Gordie and I will head over to Oxford by ourselves,” she said. “The Bodleian Library is an excellent old library, and it does have some genealogical material on the Harts, as well as an exhibit of Elizabethan jewelry. But we’ve decided that it would be a shame for you youngsters to spend a whole day in research when there are so many interesting things to do here in Stratford.”

  “Yes, ye simply must visit the Stratford Market,” said McDuff with an emphatic roll of his r’s. “Stratford’s always been mainly a market town, ye know, and it’s quite an attraction for the tourists.”

  “To market, to market!” Mart said good-naturedly. To buy a fake Scot, Trixie thought to herself with a toss of her sandy curls.

  After McDuff described the market further, Honey said politely, “It sounds like what we would call a farmer’s market back home. It’ll be fun—we have lots of shopping for souvenirs to do, anyway.”

  The Bob-Whites decided to head for the market in the afternoon, because Anne and Gregory had offered to entertain them at Hartfield House that morning. The two Harts were too busy running the house to spend more than a few hours at a time having fun. Andrew Hart appeared to avoid any menial labor, and there didn’t seem to be enough servants for all the work. Gregory’s apprenticeship at the theater kept him busy, also. Both Anne and Gregory looked wistful whenever any of the Bob-Whites mentioned anything about their club or their friends back home.

  First the Bob-Whites helped the Harts clean up the stables, and then Gregory asked Jim to go riding.

  There were only three horses in the large stables, and Andrew Hart had already galloped off on a handsome black stallion. Anne let Jim use her mare—a prancing roan with a star on her forehead.

  “Let’s play tennis,” Anne said to the others. “We can play some doubles if you like.”

  “Anne is a tournament player,” Gregory told them before he cantered off with Jim. “She’s too bashful to mention it herself, but she got to the semifinals at Junior Wimbledon this year.”

  “Gleeps,” groaned Trixie. “She’d better not pick me for a partner. I’m the pits as far as tennis is concerned. I never seem to find the time to practice.”

  “Tennis takes patience,” Mart said, “a virtue foreign to Trixie’s tempestuous nature.”

  The Bob-Whites hadn’t brought their tennis gear, but Anne had enough rackets to go around, and they took off their shoes and played barefoot. The Harts had a grass court that felt cool and soft to their feet.

  “You’re not so terrible,” Anne told Trixie once they started playing. “You just need more confidence, that’s all. You’re a jolly good partner!”

  Trixie and Anne proceeded to trounce Mart and Honey for several games until Jim and Gregory came back from their ride.

  “You played great, Trix,” Honey said that afternoon as the Bob-Whites set off for the market.

  “Anne’s a wonderful partner,” Trixie said. “Not just because she’s so good, but she made me feel like I was playing super, so I played better.”

  Everybody laughed at Trixie’s garbled explanation, but they knew what she meant.

  “Feeling confident helps in any sport,” Honey agreed.

  “I wouldn’t have missed that grass court for anything,” Trixie said. “I’m just as glad we didn’t go to that library.”

  “Me, too,” Jim said. “I think I’m in love—with a horse!”

  “And we really do have to get some presents today,” Honey added. “We don’t have much time left.”

  “True,” Trixie said. “But what we really have to do is solve our mystery—in two days.”

  “We do have some leads,” her partner reminded her. “Those charts Anne’s mother made, and whatever it is Anne’s going to show us at the castle. And then there’s the information Miss Trask finds out today in Oxford.”

  “If any,” Trixie scoffed. “I doubt if she gets any work done with that Transylvanian or whatever hanging around all the time. I just can’t help wondering—”

  “What he is,” Mart interrupted understandingly. “Why would he pretend to be Scottish if he isn’t?”

  “And what’s he buttering up Miss Trask for?” Trixie added, surprised to have Mart on her side for a change.

  “What makes you so sure he doesn’t mean what he says to Miss Trask?” Honey asked, looking troubled. “Older people do fall in love sometimes, you know, and she’s a wonderful person.”

  “Honey could be right,” Jim said. “When you think about it, what’s the man done to us? Merely saved Honey’s life, showed us around to all the best places, and given Miss Trask a good time—which she sure deserves.”

  “He’s going to break her heart,” Trixie insisted.

  “ ‘A pair of star-cross’d lovers,’ ” Mart quoted with a sigh.

  “Isn’t that from Romeo and Juliet?” asked Trixie. “They’re not exactly McDuff and Miss Trask!”

  Honey was looking more and more upset, and Jim tactfully changed the subject. “It must be hard on Gregory and Anne to run Hartfield House,” he said. “All that work, and not enough money for servants, and their father so bitter about the whole thing. Anne may have to give up her tennis, Gregory told me.”

  “But she’s really good,” said Trixie.

  “He didn’t say,” Jim went on, “but I suspect he may have to give up his acting career, too, if they can’t make a go of it.”

  “A lot of English families with big old homes have that problem,” Mart said. “The taxes—rates, I mean —are so high that they either have to sell their homes or take in tourists.”

  “The inflation makes it hard to maintain a large house, too,” Jim added.

  “I wonder what would happen if my father lost his money and had to rent out rooms in Manor House.” Honey’s big hazel eyes filled with sympathy.

  “We’d manage,” Jim said. “I’m sure Dad could take it, but....”

  “I know,” Honey sighed. “It would kill Mother.”

  “Well, anyhow, we cleaned up our rooms this morning,” Trixie said. “So maybe Anne and Gregory can meet us at the Cobweb for tea, like they were hoping.”

  “Yes, they simply must try the duck,” Mart said with a teasing look at Honey.

  Like every place in Stratford, the market square was within walking distance, even from the Harts’ country mansion. After passing the Post Office, the Bob-Whites found Wood Street, which led to the American Fountain. This statue, which Anne had directed them to, stood at the center of the open space where rows of booths had been set up. Not only farm products, but also tourist souvenirs and other colorful miscellanea were displayed.

  “Good chance to get some more pictures,” said Mart, putting a roll of self-developing film into his camera.

  “Jeepers, this is almost as crowded as Piccadilly Circus,” Trixie observed as they joined the throngs of shoppers.

  “Anne said we might want to check out the regular shops in town, too,” Honey said. “I want to look in that china store she told us about. I just have to get some of those cute cups and bowls with bunnies on them for Bobby and the Lynch twins, and some china flower baskets for Mother—”

  “Oh, my gosh!” Trixie cried. “Look at that!”

  Jim, Mart, and Honey craned their necks to see what she was pointing at.

  “There—over there! Oh, quick, Mart, give me your camera!” Trixie waved wildly at the statue in the center of the market square.

  “You want a picture of the American Fountain?” Mart handed his sister the camera with an indulgent grin. “I happen to know it was presented to Stratford-on-Avon in the year of Queen Victoria’s jubilee. A jubilee, in case you’re wondering, is the fiftieth year of the reign of an English monarch. That was in the nineteenth century, in the year—”

  Without waiting for him to finish, Trixie yanked the strap of the camera over her sandy curls. She didn’t hear what year, but she did remember to look in the viewfinder and aim carefully before clicking the shutter. “Oh, please, let me do it right,” she
muttered. “Just this once.”

  “Here,” Mart chuckled. “Don’t waste too much film, Trixie. Just tell me what you want. I’ll take it.”

  “What’s up, Trix?” Jim asked more seriously.

  “I saw him!” Trixie insisted. “Right by the statue. And this time you’ll have to believe me.”

  “Saw whom?” Honey was used to Trixie’s sometimes indefinite way of talking and could often read her mind, but this time she was completely baffled.

  “You’ll see,” Trixie promised. “Here, Mart, take out the picture.”

  As Mart slid the developed photo out of the camera, Trixie could hardly wait to snatch it from him. Teasingly, he held it up, just out of her reach, and looked at it himself.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Not bad at all, Trix. Hey, guys, this is the best picture Trixie has ever taken!”

  “I didn’t jiggle it,” she agreed. “And I know I didn’t cut off his head—come on, Mart, please give it to me!”

  Mart handed her the snapshot.

  She took a quick look and groaned. “It was Gray Cap!” Trixie fought back tears of frustration. “He must have slipped behind the statue just after I focused. I held my breath for a second to make sure I wouldn’t blur it—that must have been when he got away. Oh, dinglebuckles.”

  Jim, Honey, and Mart were silent. Trixie almost wished they’d tease her about her overactive imagination, but they were being strangely tactful. Oh, she knew she’d have to have proof before they’d ever believe she’d seen that London pickpocket way out here in the country. And she had taken a perfect picture, too, not the least bit jiggled—only it was of a statue!

  “Better luck next time,” Mart said after a while. He actually sounded almost sympathetic.

  For Trixie, the shopping trip was spoiled. She bought some things for the folks back home, but she hardly noticed what. She was still keeping her eyes peeled for that dirty gray golf cap.

  The Bob-Whites were back at Hartfield House by six. Gregory had shown up for tea at The Cobweb, but Anne hadn’t been able to make it. She met them in the garden, where she was picking some flowers for the dining room.

  “Mariellen, the cook, had a spot of trouble with the joint,” she explained. “I had to lend a hand.”

  “A joint,” Gregory added, “is a roast. Well, I’m off to the theater now. See you all later.”

  Trixie and Honey walked along the rose-lined path to their room, to freshen up before dinner. “Honest, Honey, I did see him,” insisted Trixie. “I’d know him anywhere.”

  “I suppose they do have pickpockets in the country,” Honey admitted. “In places like Stratford-on-Avon, with all these sightseers. But I don’t see how it could be the same one, Trix. We’re ninety miles from London! One piece of jewelry wouldn’t be worth following us all this way.”

  “Unless it was a crown jewel,” Trixie said.

  “But it isn’t. It’s only glass, the appraiser said.” Honey stood on tiptoe to pick a pink rose from the trellis that arched the Rose Room door.

  “I wonder if Miss Trask and McDuff will be back in time for dinner,” Trixie said as she pushed open their door. “Hey—that’s funny. It isn’t locked.”

  “Oh, Trixie!” Honey’s voice quavered as they looked around their room, once beautiful but now in a shambles. Their suitcases were in the middle of the beds, wide open. Clothes were strewn around the flowered carpet. The bedcovers were even ripped off the beds. Their things were spilling out of the bureau drawers.

  The girls stared at each other with tears in their eyes.

  “How awful, ” Trixie whispered.

  Honey was rummaging in a drawer. When she turned to face Trixie, her face was drained of color.

  “My necklace,” she squeaked. “We were so tired last night, and I meant to ask Anne to put it back in the safe this morning. But oh, Trixie, I forgot, and now it’s gone!”

  Family Tree • 13

  EVERYBODY FORGETS sometimes,” Trixie said as comfortingly as she could.

  “But n-not s-such an important thing.” Honey couldn’t stop crying as they rushed up the stairs to Mart and Jim’s room.

  Trixie pounded on the door, but nobody answered. Had they gone down to dinner already? Just as Trixie was about to give up, Jim opened the door. He had just finished washing his hair. It was dripping wet, and he had a towel around his shoulders. Mart, they saw, still had his head in the washbowl.

  “Come see our room!” Trixie cried. “It’s all messed up, and Honey’s necklace is gone.”

  “Have you called the police?” Jim asked quickly. “When did it happen?”

  “We don’t know. Sometime when we were gone,” Trixie said. “Anybody could have got in through the rose garden, because the door was unlocked, and—”

  “I know I locked the door,” Honey said positively. “I remember that.”

  “It had to be Gray Cap,” Trixie said. “I told you I saw him in the market square—”

  “Come on,” Mart interrupted. “Let’s go! Wait— no, wait a minute. Where’s my wallet?” Mart’s head was still plastered with curly white lather, but Trixie had never seen her brother so excited. Mart, the unflappable!

  “It’s right there on the bureau,” Jim said.

  “Yeah—well, look!” Mart riffled through the wallet and came up with a snapshot. He held it out to Trixie. “Is that the guy?” he asked her.

  Trixie couldn’t believe her eyes. There he was, that creepy little gray man, half hidden in the crowd around the American Fountain.

  “Mart,” she squealed. “That’s him!”

  “He,” Mart corrected mechanically. “I was planning to surprise you all at dinner, but you’d better see it now. I saw him a few minutes after you did, Trix, and got a pretty good shot. Should we show it to the police?”

  “You’re darn tootin’!” Trixie’s blue eyes sparkled. “Oh, Mart, you’re wonderful. Come on!”

  Trixie led the charge down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “Anne! Anne!” Trixie yelled in the little hallway that led to the kitchen.

  The swinging door opened, but it was Andrew, not Anne, Hart who stood there, glaring at them. “Yes?” he said curtly.

  “Oh, Mr. Hart, we’ve been robbed,” Trixie blurted, while Jim was saying, “We’d like to call the police, sir,” and Mart was delivering a lengthy explanation of how he took his picture. Honey was too upset to say a word.

  “Indeed?” Andrew Hart’s black eyes snapped, and his nostrils were white with anger. “Anne?” he called, turning his back on them. When she came hurrying out, he disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the Bob-Whites to tell her all over again about the robbery.

  “Oh, dear, I’m most frightfully sorry. We must ring up the constable immediately,” she said. “Poor Father! He must have been terribly upset. We’ve never been burglarized, you know.”

  Before the local police had time to arrive, the Maroon Saloon drove up in the gravel crescent, and McDuff handed Miss Trask out with a flourish. The Bob-Whites and Anne were all waiting at the door.

  “She looks like she had a wonderful time,” Honey murmured to Trixie. “She’s positively glowing!”

  “All the worse for her when McDuff takes off for Scotland,” Trixie muttered, “if that’s where he’s

  really going. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  “Well, even if he isn’t a real Scotsman, he hasn’t done us any harm,” Honey said. “He certainly couldn’t have taken my necklace—he was in Oxford all day.”

  “True,” Trixie admitted reluctantly. “I guess he couldn’t. But anyhow, we know who the thief was.” The constable arrived while McDuff and Miss Trask were dressing for dinner. The young fellow in blue went over the Rose Room thoroughly without coming up with a single clue, but he promised to do more investigating.

  At dinner, the girls went over the whole story again.

  “It could have been a pickpocket who ransacked the Rose Room, but,” Miss Trask said crisply, “he didn’t get Honey�
��s necklace!”

  “Didn’t get it?” Anne, Honey, and Trixie said in one breath.

  “I asked Gregory to put it in the safe before I left this morning,” Miss Trask explained. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  “He’s been at the theater,” Anne said weakly. “He doesn’t know anything about all this.”

  “Oh, Miss Trask!” Honey said gratefully. “I’ve been feeling so awful.”

  “I knew you took it out last night, and I just thought I'd better check to be sure it got put back,” their chaperon said.

  “I forgot,” Honey confessed miserably.

  “Well, no harm done.” Miss Trask’s blue eyes were sympathetic. “It’s easy to forget things when you’re excited, even important things. Actually, I’ve been wondering about something myself. You say the door of your room was open when you got back? I got Gregory to open it for me with the master key, but I can’t remember for the life of me if I latched it when I left.”

  The Bob-Whites stared at each other in amazement. Their Miss Trask—the embodiment of efficiency—forgetting something?

  After dinner, Trixie and Honey straightened up the Rose Room. “I bet that constable never catches up with Gray Cap,” Trixie said.

  “Do you think he’ll try again?” Honey asked anxiously. “Gray Cap, I mean?”

  “Sure to,” Trixie replied. “But that’s when we’ll catch him.”

  The Bob-Whites were traveling light, and it didn’t take the girls long to put things back in the drawers and hang clothes up in the closet.

  “I can hardly wait to go to the castle tomorrow,” Honey said. “I’ve never seen a real castle, have you?”

  “Nope. But what I can’t wait to see is whatever-it-was Anne was talking about—you know, in the Great Hall.”

  “What if her father won’t let her go with us?” Honey worried.

  “He’s got to,” Trixie said confidently. “Now ‘come along,’ as the English say. Let’s go hear what Miss Trask found out at Oxford today.”