The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace Read online

  Jim and Mart had gone on to the foot of the narrow, winding stairs to the tower Trixie had pointed out. The rest of the party joined them.

  “Jeepers, Mr. McDuff,” Trixie said gratefully, “that’s awfully nice of you.”

  “My pleasure,” he said. “Now, how do ye want to go about it?”

  “We could bottle him up in the castle,” Trixie said eagerly. “He’s up in this tower now—he must be, unless there’s some other way out. And anyway, he’d have to go down that long driveway to get out of the castle grounds. It’s tunneled out of solid rock and too high to climb, and there’s the porter at the gate—”

  “I’ll cover the gate,” Mart said.

  “Perhaps I should do that,” McDuff was protesting, but Mart had already taken off, long legs flying.

  “Is there any other way out?” Trixie asked Anne.

  “There is another breach in the walls,” Anne said, “but it’s always guarded. They’d never let a stranger out there, but in any case, I’ll go speak to the guards.” Anne’s dark pageboy bob bounced on her shoulders as she ran across the courtyard.

  “Jim and I will smell the man out,” McDuff said grimly. “You ladies stay here. I’ll climb the tower, and Jim can reconnoiter, in case the little rat slips out. Those pesky little thieves have a way of slipping right through yer fingers.” The big Scotsman disappeared up the dusky stairway.

  “Stay here?” Trixie fumed. “Not on your life!” And she was off before Miss Trask could say a word. If McDuff was going up that tower, so was she. “Ladies,” indeed!

  The stone steps were narrow and so twisted that there wasn’t room to set both feet on one stair. The light was dim, and Trixie stumbled. A sharp pain shot through her ankle, but she hardly noticed it.

  “Just take ’em one at a time,” she muttered to herself.

  She thought she heard Miss Trask calling for her to come down, but she decided she wasn’t sure about that. Anyway, McDuff was right ahead of her. What could happen? He was twice as big as Gray Cap!

  On the way up, she passed several small rooms with slits in the stone walls, for shooting arrows at attackers. Trixie examined each room to make sure that the little gray man wasn’t hiding in any of them. She found nothing until the last room, where there was a painting on the wall. For one awful second, she could have sworn that the eyes in that painting were following her. Trixie set her jaw, looked closer, and decided there was no way anyone could be hiding behind it.

  “Brrrr,” she shivered. It was cold in the murky stone tower.

  After that, the steps grew even narrower, and there were no handrails—only a rope to hang on to.

  “I hope this rope’s not as old as the one in the Great Hall,” she muttered, clutching it tightly.

  Finally she caught sight of sunshine through an opening above her. She stopped to catch her breath, and for a moment she thought she heard voices. She raced up to the stone parapet. If McDuff was giving Gray Cap that talking-to, she wanted to get in a few words herself!

  But there was nobody in sight on the parapet.

  The blue sky was filled with huge white clouds, and the rolling green hills of the Cotswolds stretched out below her. From this corner of the battlements, she couldn’t see the river.

  Suddenly the big Scotsman appeared from around a bend in the parapet. When he caught sight of Trixie, he looked angry, she thought. But then he smiled.

  “Och, lassie!” He shook his grizzled head at her.

  “Ye came after all. But as ye can see, there’s nobody here.”

  “I’ll just walk around and take a look,” Trixie said. She was almost positive she had heard voices up here. And who could it have been but Gray Cap and McDuff? Unless, of course, Gordie McDuff talked to himself, like she did sometimes...

  “No, ye will not,” McDuff said firmly, and his big hand bit into her arm as he piloted her ahead of him down the narrow stairs. “Just what would a wee lass like you have done if ye had met up with a dangerous criminal instead of with me?” he asked sternly.

  Trixie tossed her curls defiantly. Maybe he didn’t mean to, but McDuff was hurting her arm.

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream • 15

  DIDN’T YOU HEAR me calling you?” Miss Trask asked as Trixie and McDuff joined the others in the courtyard. “We have to leave now. The castle is closing.”

  “But we can’t leave now,” Trixie protested. “We can’t let Gray Cap get away again.”

  “He has to be here somewhere,” Honey agreed. “I went and talked to Mart down at the gate. He and the porter both say nobody could have come down that drive without their seeing him.”

  “The guards I talked to said the same thing,” Anne reported. “And that’s the only other breach in the walls.”

  “I looked everywhere that’s open to the public,” Jim said. “I sure would hate to play hide-and-seek in this castle. There are a million hiding places.”

  A stout, red-faced guard beckoned impatiently from the Clock Tower. “Move along, now,” he called.

  “I think he’s the one that popped up when I fell in the Great Hall,” Trixie whispered to Honey.

  “I don’t know what we would do if we did come across the man,” McDuff was telling Miss Trask.

  Trixie overheard him and looked indignantly at Jim. “I bet he doesn’t even want to catch Gray Cap,” she muttered. “It would probably delay him on his trip to Scotland.”

  “Well, it is a sticky problem, Trix,” Jim told her. “We have to leave tomorrow, too, you know. Even if we had enough evidence to make charges, we wouldn’t be here for the trial. And as I said, I doubt Andrew Hart will want to advertise what happened to the Rose Room. So perhaps he won’t even press charges.”

  Trixie couldn’t believe her ears. Even Jim was ready to give up the search!

  She marched up to the stout castle guard. “There’s a pickpocket hiding somewhere on your grounds,” she informed him. “He followed us all the way from London, where he snatched my friend Honey’s purse. But the thing he was looking for wasn’t in it, and then we saw him again in the market square yesterday—in Stratford—and last night our room at the Hartfield House was ransacked, so would you please let us stay and look for him?”

  The guard seemed completely befuddled by Trixie’s impassioned appeal. “Are you the young lydy as caused the disturbance in the Great Hall this afternoon?” he inquired.

  Not seeing what that had to do with anything, Trixie was unsure how to continue.

  “Come, Trixie, there really isn’t anything further we can do,” Miss Trask called.

  “Well, then, will you look for him?” Trixie asked the guard. “And will you call us up and let us know if you find him?”

  “You could ring us up at the Hartfield House in Stratford,” Anne said. “And reverse the charges. My father is Andrew Hart.”

  “I know the gentleman,” the man puffed importantly. “And if there’s anybody shut up in Warwick Castle, which I doubt, ’e won’t get out till the gytes open tomorrow.”

  “The castle doesn’t open till one o’clock on Sundays,” Anne said as she and the three Bob-Whites hurried down the drive to the outer gate, followed by McDuff and Miss Trask.

  Trixie looked up at the sheer stone walls on either side. No one could possibly climb them. This late in the afternoon, not a single ray of sunshine filtered through the giant treetops above.

  Trixie shivered. “I wouldn’t like to spend the night here myself,” she told Honey.

  “Not even in one of those fancy beds?” Honey laughed.

  “Don’t you want to catch that man?” Trixie asked suspiciously.

  “Well, as Mr. McDuff said, what could we do if we did? After all, we’re going home tomorrow, and I don’t think he’ll follow us to Sleepyside! My necklace is safe, and we’ve solved our mystery.”

  Not as far as I'm concerned, Trixie thought.

  Mart was waiting for them at the outer gate. He came up close to his sister and muttered in her ear, “I told the p
orter all about Gray Cap. He says they’ll look around.”

  “I’m glad somebody takes me seriously,” she told Mart gratefully.

  “The porter says there’s no way anybody could get out after the gate is locked,” Mart went on. “All Gray Cap can do is wait and try to slip out when the crowds come tomorrow. He’ll probably figure we stopped looking for him.”

  “He’ll be wrong—we’ll be here,” Trixie said grimly, her jaw set.

  The Bob-Whites stayed to watch the closing of the gate. As the solid, impenetrable wood gate swung shut, the porter waved at them with a conspiratorial grin.

  Soon the Maroon Saloon was kicking up the gravel in the crescent drive of Hartfield House. As usual, McDuff hurried around the car to open the door for Miss Trask.

  Trixie and Honey walked through the rose garden to their room. “I sure do hope he doesn’t break her heart,” Trixie muttered to her best friend. “If he’s off to Scotland tomorrow morning, do you think she’ll ever hear from him again?”

  “When you were up in the tower, Miss Trask told us he plans to come to Sleepyside after he gets back home,” Honey said. “He lives in Nova Scotia.”

  Trixie’s arm still hurt where McDuff had grabbed it. In fact, as she noticed when she changed into her prettiest dress, it was turning purple. She decided not to mention it to Honey, though. Not yet.

  They had to hurry through another delicious dinner in order to get to the theater by curtain time.

  “It seems as if we’ve been rushing from one place to another ever since we got to England,” Honey said. “But isn’t it fun?” Her hazel eyes were shining.

  “It’s fantastic,” Trixie agreed, “but—”

  “I know, you want to find out more about the necklace,” Honey guessed. She and Trixie often understood each other without talking.

  “And tie up a few other odds and ends,” Trixie added.

  When the Bob-Whites took their seats in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Trixie was still thinking of Gray Cap bottled up in Warwick Castle. But when the play began, she forgot all about him. Caught up

  in the magic spell of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she was in another world till the houselights came up for intermission.

  “It’s almost as good as our Sleepyside Junior-Senior High production,” Jim chuckled as they filed out to the lobby to get their ices.

  “Don’t let Gregory hear you say that,” said Honey.

  After the play, Gregory joined them for a late supper at the Dirty Duck, where actors gathered after shows, and tourists gathered to see the actors. Gregory’s cheeks were rosy with makeup he had only hastily removed.

  “Jeepers, imagine having supper with Thisbe,” Trixie giggled.

  “You were great,” Honey told him shyly.

  “Good show, old chap,” Mart couldn’t resist saying, in a pompous voice.

  Ordinarily Gregory’s voice, like his father’s, was very deep, but as Thisbe he had used a high, squeaky voice. He entertained the Bob-Whites with some of the lines from his role and then went on to mimic other roles. “ ‘I have had a dream,’ ” he told them in Bottom’s braying voice, “ ‘past the wit of man to say what dream it was.’ ”

  “Wasn’t it a wonderful evening?” Trixie said to Honey, after they got back to the Rose Room and were getting ready for bed. “I’ll never forget this trip to England as long as I live.”

  “Even if we don’t solve our case?” Honey teased.

  “Well,” admitted Trixie, “I’ll be more apt to remember it if we do get this case wrapped up.”

  Trixie woke up so early that the birds hadn’t even started to sing. It was barely light.

  This is our last day, she thought. She didn’t want to waste a minute of it.

  “Honey?” She reached over to the other bed and poked the heap under the covers. “Are you awake?” Honey rolled over. “Ummm-mm,” she said drowsily. “Wha—time—is—it?”

  “Time to wake up,” Trixie said firmly. “I’ve got everything figured out. You know how you go to sleep with a problem, and your subconscious works on it? Well, I must have had just the right dreams last night, because—”

  “Trixie Belden!” Honey sat up on her elbow and forced her eyes open wide enough to see the clock. “It’s not even five o’clock! What in the world are we going to do till breakfast?”

  “Talk about the case.” Trixie was propped up on her pillows, her blue eyes sparkling. “We won’t have any time later. We have to pack, and your mother’s coming—what time is she coming?”

  “She didn’t say,” Honey said sleepily.

  “We have to get to the castle by one,” Trixie said. Honey resigned herself to the idea of staying awake and swung her feet to the floor. “I should think we ought to stay away from that horrible man,” she pointed out, “not chase after him. So he tried to get my necklace. He didn’t get it, did he? And there wasn’t all that much in my handbag, Trix. He can have it. I never want to see that horrid little man again.”

  “Why does everybody think we ought to let him go,” Trixie complained, “when he’s important to our case? Maybe he knows something about the necklace that we don’t.”

  “How could he possibly know anything about it? He hasn’t even seen it.”

  “I don’t know how,” Trixie admitted. “But why would he follow us all the way from London if he didn’t know something?”

  “He probably thinks it’s more valuable than it is,” Honey said. “He must think the jewels are real, and we did say my necklace looked like Queen Elizabeth’s in the Wax Museum.”

  “Not as much as it looks like the one in Warwick Castle!” Trixie said enthusiastically. “I think we ought to take your necklace along with us and compare it with the one in the portrait. If your mother gets here in time, maybe she could go along—then she could see it’s the same, too. And she might persuade the guard to let us get up closer.”

  “Sure,” Honey said, “then out pops Gray Cap from behind a knight in armor, and this time he gets the necklace.”

  “No, sir, this time we get him,” Trixie said. “We catch him with the goods, so nobody can say we can’t prove anything. We’ll have Jim and Mart with us, and Gregory wants to go along. There’s scads of us, but only one of him. I think.”

  “You think—what’s that supposed to mean?” When Trixie wanted to, she could sound very mysterious, and Honey leaned forward, totally wide awake.

  A Strange Disappearance ● 16

  THAT’S WHAT I’VE been trying to tell you,” said Trixie. “I must have been dreaming about the case last night, and that’s what my subconscious came up with—that the pieces of the puzzle don’t quite fit together unless—unless there’s more than one person in on it.”

  “Oh, woe,” Honey groaned, rolling back onto the bed. “After we leave, they’re going to change the name of this room from the Rose Room to the Nut Room! Are you trying to tell me that there’s more than one pickpocket after us?” Then she turned serious. “Come to think of it, Trix, you’ve seen Gray Cap more times than any of the rest of us have. Is he more than one person?”

  “I’m still kind of hazy about it in my own mind,” admitted Trixie. “I’m going to have to think about it some more. Tell you what—let’s get up and pack now so we can get that over with. Then we could go over to the stables and see if Gregory’s there and if he’ll let us go riding before breakfast.”

  When the girls arrived at the stables an hour later, they found Jim and Gregory saddling up for a ride.

  “Where’s Mart?” asked Trixie.

  “Buried under a pillow,” Jim chuckled.

  Gregory insisted that the girls and Jim take out the three horses. “My father’s too busy to ride this morning,” he said, “and I really should get on with my chores. There’s something I want to be sure to attend to before you leave for the States.”

  Now, that sounds mysterious, Trixie thought as Gregory strode off.

  The country air was exhilarating, and the three riders were a few minu
tes late for breakfast. Trixie was about to announce that she was as hungry as a horse, when Andrew Hart appeared in the entrance to the Crimson Room. I bet he can hardly wait for us to go back to America, Trixie thought.

  “Let me know when you are ready to check out,” he told them, then turned on his heels and left as abruptly as he had come.

  “I hope he didn’t mind my riding Black Prince.” Jim looked worried. “Gregory said his father almost always rides the stallion himself, but he had too much to do today to get ready for the ‘hordes of barbarians’ he expects tomorrow.”

  “Poor Mr. Hart,” Honey said. “I think it’s terrible that he has to take in tourists when he hates it so much.”

  “Anne says he’ll get used to it,” Mart said. “She told me it takes him a long time to adjust to change. When his wife died, he almost had a breakdown. So I don’t think his attitude toward us is anything personal. Another thing Anne told me while you were out prancing around was that she told Gregory last night about Honey’s necklace matching the one in the castle. He says he has an idea about Honey’s necklace, but he wants to check it out before telling us. That’s where he’s gone now.”

  “What kind of an idea?” Trixie was bursting with questions. “How’s he going to check it out? Can he do it before Mrs. Wheeler gets here?”

  “I believe there’s someone he wants to talk to at the theater,” Mart said, “but I’m not sure.”

  “At the theater,” Honey said thoughtfully. “I wonder what he could find out there.”

  Trixie was so excited she could hardly finish her breakfast. “When’s he coming back? Do you think he can find out why they copied the necklace? Maybe somebody wanted to steal the real one and—”

  “Calm down, old girl,” Mart said, “before you drive us all bonkers.”

  Miss Trask and McDuff had eaten earlier than the

  Bob-Whites and were saying their good-byes out in the vestibule. McDuff was planning on taking the late morning bus to Glasgow. After breakfast, the Bob-Whites went out to say good-bye, and soon the tall Scotsman was waving heartily at them from a taxi. He was leaving the Maroon Saloon there, to be picked up by the rental company later.