The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace Read online

  Trixie was trembling, but she stepped forward obediently as the pickpocket singled her out with his switchblade.

  All’s Well That Ends Well ● 18

  MISS TRASK SPOKE UP firmly. “You are certainly not taking anyone hostage. If you are thinking of adding to the charges against you, kindly remember that kidnapping is a very serious crime.”

  McDuff and Ferdie conferred for a moment and then slowly backed away, their knives still pointed at the Bob-Whites, Miss Trask, and the porter. “Don’t move, any of you,” McDuff snarled without a trace of an accent. “I’m already faced with armed robbery, and I don’t need any other charges. But I won’t hesitate to use this.”

  Honey clutched Trixie’s hand as the two men backed across the deserted street to the black car and got inside. McDuff slid behind the wheel, and Ferdie sat in the seat next to him, glaring evilly at the little group by the gate.

  Trixie gritted her teeth. “We can’t just stand here,” she cried. “They’re getting away with the necklace!” She couldn’t decide whether to scream bloody murder or throw herself in front of the car.

  “That necklace isn’t worth one second of your precious lives,” Miss Trask said quietly.

  Miss Trask was right, and Trixie knew it. “Gleeps,” she groaned, “I must be growing up. I’m getting sensible.”

  “I doubt they’ll get far,” the young porter said hopefully. “I’ve alerted the castle guards. There’s a small button under the counter, you see.”

  “And here comes the local constabulary,” Mart whooped as the familiar a—hoo—a—hoo of the English police horns rang out through Warwick.

  “There’s Jim!” Trixie shrieked as the tall, red-haired boy came running toward them.

  “Am I glad you’re all safe!” He threw his arms around Trixie and whirled her until she was dizzy.

  For a moment, Trixie’s eagle eye was off the robbers. When she looked back, the black car was still at the curb, and McDuff and Ferdie were outside, looking under the hood. Two honking police cars roared around the corner.

  “How about that?” Trixie gasped. “They can’t even get started!”

  Miss Trask looked pleased as the constables penned in the black car and took the thieves into custody. The two men gave up without a fight.

  “I do believe that someone has removed the rotor from under the distributor cap,” their chaperon chuckled.

  “Miss Trask!” the Bob-Whites chorused.

  “Jeepers, is she a good sport!” Trixie whispered to Honey.

  Honey was looking past Trixie at Gregory and Anne, who had come up behind Jim. “Is your father okay?” she asked anxiously.

  “He seems to be,” said Anne, smiling.

  “McDuff gave him a hard time, though,” Jim said. “He pulled the gun as soon as Mr. Hart got the safe open, and then he forced him out to the stables.”

  “I thought it took McDuff a long time to come down to the vestibule with his luggage,” Miss Trask said.

  Gregory nodded. “He let Black Prince out to make it look like my father had gone riding. Then he knocked out my father and dragged him behind a pile of hay. When Black Prince came back without a rider, I thought my father had been thrown, and so Jim and I rode out to look for him.”

  “So that’s why nobody was in the stables when we came to look for Jim,” Trixie said.

  “Only there was someone there,” said Honey, shuddering.

  “Poor Mr. Hart!” Trixie exclaimed. “No wonder he doesn’t think much of tourists—look what happened to him when he took us in! I hope there’s some way we can make it up to him.”

  As the whole group headed back to the parking lot, Trixie filled in Jim, Anne, and Gregory on how' she had figured out that McDuff and Gray Cap had been working together all along. “It was Gray Cap who first spotted us in the Wax Museum,” she decided. “He overheard Honey talking about her necklace and tried to swipe it. Failing that, he started following us.”

  Like Gregory and Honey, Jim was full of admiration for Trixie’s detective skills. “So McDuff was Gray Cap’s smooth-talking partner,” he mused.

  “Right,” said Trixie. “You could tell that everything that man said, true or false, was designed to gain our confidence so he could be our guide and tell Gray Cap where we were going to be.” She was silent for a moment. “And Miss Trask, what you said before about a Scottish brogue reminded me of something else Gray Cap overheard us saying in the Wax Museum. We were talking about how bloody Scottish and English history was, and Jim said something about you liking the sound of the Scottish accent. So that’s why McDuff talked with one—only it was fake, like everything else about him!”

  “No wonder it got on my nerves,” Miss Trask said.

  Honey still looked troubled. “Trixie thinks that either McDuff or Gray Cap pushed me off that curb in Piccadilly Circus so that McDuff could pretend to save me,” she said unhappily. “But I just can’t believe that anyone would do such a horrible thing.”

  “Maybe he was just an opportunist,” Mart suggested seriously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He could have been making the best of an opportunity that came his way,” said Jim. “With both guys keeping tabs on us, they probably figured that sooner or later something was going to happen that would give McDuff the chance to gain our confidence. So maybe McDuff really did save your life, Honey.”

  Honey rewarded the boys with a radiant smiler “I guess we’ll never know for sure,” said Trixie, leaning against the Maroon Saloon. “I just can’t get over how much trouble those two took to get at a necklace. They must have assumed it was horrendously valuable. That reminds me,” she said, turning to Gregory, “did you find out anything more from the curator at the theater museum?”

  “I’ve invited him to dinner tonight so he can examine the necklace after we get it back from the police and before you take it back to the States,” said Gregory. “That is, if you have no objection.”

  “I’m just thankful we have the necklace to show him,” Honey said. “And Mother will be here for dinner, too. She’ll be fascinated at what we’ve been able to find out—that the necklace was copied from Queen Elizabeth’s and used in Shakespeare’s plays.”

  “I’m afraid that’s only a hypothesis,” said Gregory. “But Mr. Cowles, the curator, told me he wished he had the funds to purchase a historical piece like that for the museum. Unfortunately, he’s barely able to keep the museum going. We all depend a great deal on the generosity of foreign visitors, though people like my father find that a hard pill to swallow.”

  “Well, I think it’s a perfectly marvelous hypotenuse,” Trixie said enthusiastically. “And I’ll bet Mrs. Wheeler will be so thrilled that she’ll let Honey give the necklace to the museum!”

  Everyone groaned at Trixie’s rendition of “hypothesis”—and even more at her impetuous offer of the Hart family heirloom. Everyone, that is, but Honey.

  “That’s a super idea,” she said, smiling at Gregory and Anne.

  “Father will be terribly impressed if you do something like that,” Anne told her. “That’s bound to convince him that tourists are absolutely smashing.”

  “Some tourists, at any rate,” said Gregory warmly. “You and Anne will have to come to Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson sometime,” Honey said, “to visit your American cousins.”

  “That’s all of us Bob-Whites,” Trixie told them, “including some you haven’t even met yet.”

  “International relations seem to be looking up, old girl,” said Mart with an infuriating grin at Trixie.

  “About time, eh, what? Jolly good, I’d say.”

  “Eh, Mart,” Jim spoke up suddenly, “I just recalled a quote from the Bard that seems particularly applicable to you. It’s ‘brevity is the soul of wit.’ Get it?” he asked teasingly.

  “Got it,” said Mart. “But that reminds me of another famous quote. It goes something like ‘mystery is the soul of Trix.’ Got that?”

  Trixie wasn’t about to let her br
other have the last word on the subject, and besides, she’d remembered a Shakespeare quote of her own. “Well,” she replied tartly, “as I’ve always said, ‘to thine own self be true!’ ” Before Mart could respond, she opened the door of the Maroon Saloon and hopped inside.

  Honeys Inheritance ● 1

  Yankee, Go Home ● 2

  In the Chamber of Horrors • 3

  Clues in the Catalog ● 4

  Piccadilly Circus • 5

  The Crown Jewels ● 6

  The Maroon Saloon ● 7

  The Tweedies • 8

  A Hostile Host ● 9

  Anne ● 10

  Gregory • 11

  To Market, To Market ● 12

  Family Tree • 13

  Warwick Castle ● 14

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream • 15

  A Strange Disappearance ● 16

  At the Castle Gate ● 17

  All’s Well That Ends Well ● 18

  Table of Contents

  Honeys Inheritance ● 1

  Yankee, Go Home ● 2

  In the Chamber of Horrors • 3

  Clues in the Catalog ● 4

  Piccadilly Circus • 5

  The Crown Jewels ● 6

  The Maroon Saloon ● 7

  The Tweedies • 8

  A Hostile Host ● 9

  Anne ● 10

  Gregory • 11

  To Market, To Market ● 12

  Family Tree • 13

  Warwick Castle ● 14

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream • 15

  A Strange Disappearance ● 16

  At the Castle Gate ● 17

  All’s Well That Ends Well ● 18