The Gatehouse Mystery Read online

  “Why?” Trixie demanded. “This would be a perfect hide-out for crooks. It can’t be seen from your house, and the woods screen it from Glen Road.”

  “Not exactly,” Honey argued. “As soon as you leave the road and go into the woods, you can see it, even though it is almost completely covered with vines. That’s how Jim and I happened to find it one day when we were out walking.”

  “That’s how the jewel thieves found it, too,” Trixie insisted. She grabbed Honey’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go back and get some shovels. If we dig, maybe we’ll find more diamonds in here.”

  “All right,” Honey said doubtfully. “But it doesn’t look as though this floor has been dug up recently. Anyway, before we dig, I think we ought to get some pruning saws and cut away the vines that almost cover the windows.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Trixie said, starting off at a run. “If we let some light into the place, we can both dig instead of one of us digging while the other holds the flashlight.”

  When they reached the top of the sloping lawn, Honey pointed to the gleaming, midnight-blue sedan that was turning into the driveway. “I guess Jim and Daddy are back from Mr. Tomlin’s. You go on and get the stuff from the tool house while I give Daddy the diamond and ask him what he thinks we ought to do with it.”

  “Oh, no, please,” Trixie begged. “Let’s not tell anybody about it for a while. Let’s try to solve the mystery of how it got in the cottage ourselves. When we cut away some of the vines, we ought to find lots of clues.”

  “We-ell,” Honey said, weakening. “I don’t think we ought to run around with anything as valuable as this diamond in our pockets.”

  “You don’t have to keep it in your pocket,” Trixie said impatiently. “Go and put it in some safe place in your room and don’t tell a soul about it.”

  “Not even Jim?” Honey asked, surprised.

  Trixie shook her head. “You know perfectly well, Honey Wheeler, that Jim’d make us turn it right over to the police. And then the cottage would be positively crawling with detectives who’d find all the clues before we had a chance.”

  “We-ell,” Honey said again. “It would be fun to solve the mystery ourselves, the way we found Jim. But it seems sort of dishonest to me not to—”

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Trixie cried exasperatedly. “It’s not dishonest at all. We’re not going to keep it.”

  “But,” Honey interrupted, “suppose the same person who dropped it comes back and finds it gone?”

  “Serves him right,” Trixie said with a sniff. “He was trespassing. Anyway, it wasn’t dropped. I had to pry it loose with a twig, remember?” She went on stubbornly, “Suppose we hadn’t decided to explore the cottage until next week or next month? Then no one would have known the diamond was there until then. So we’re not doing anything wrong if we keep it a few days.” She gave Honey a little push. “Go on quickly and hide it. And, for Pete’s sake, don’t go near Jim with that guilty expression on your face. One look at you now and he’d know for sure that we were keeping something from him.”

  Honey giggled and darted into the house just as the tall, redheaded boy and his adopted father climbed out of the sedan.

  “Hello, Mr. Wheeler,” Trixie said. “Hi, Jim.” She hurried past them up to the tool house beyond the stable.

  Honey joined her there in a few minutes. “Jim,” she said breathlessly, “is already suspicious. He thought it was very queer of you to hurry right by him without even finding out whether or not they bought the horse.”

  “Oh, dear,” Trixie moaned, handing Honey the pruning saws. “I forgot about that. Did they buy it?”

  Honey shook her head up and down. “Yes. His name is Starlight, and he’ll arrive this afternoon.”

  “How wonderful,” Trixie cried, shouldering two shovels. “I can’t wait to ride him. That is, of course, if your father will let me.”

  “Of course, he will,” Honey said. “You ride as well as the rest of us now, Trixie. No one would ever know that you’d never been on a horse until this summer.” She started for the door of the tool house, then stopped. “They’re sitting on the porch, Jim and Daddy. Let’s go down to the cottage the long way, through the woods. If we cut across the lawn Jim will want to know why we’re taking shovels down there. I told him we were just going to cut away some vines from a window.”

  “Let’s not get Jim any more suspicious than he is,” Trixie agreed.

  The woods, which bounded both the Wheeler and Belden properties on the north, sloped down to form the western boundary of the big estate. Both properties faced a quiet country road two miles from the village that nestled among the rolling hills on the east bank of the Hudson River. Honey’s home was high on a hill overlooking the Beldens’ little white farmhouse down in the hollow.

  When the girls left the tool house on their way to the woods behind the mansion, they passed the corral where Regan was giving Bobby a riding lesson on gentle Lady.

  “Where are those two shovels taking you, Trixie?” Regan asked with a grin.

  Trixie ignored the question. “We found out that Bobby cut his knee on a stone, Regan,” she said, giving Honey a nudge. “Diamonds are stones,” she whispered as soon as they were in the woods.

  “Crystallized carbon,” Honey said with a laugh. “The hardest stones in the world. The only thing that will cut a diamond is another diamond. That’s where the expression ‘diamond cut diamond’ comes from.”

  “It means the same thing as ‘it takes a thief to catch a thief,’ doesn’t it?” Trixie asked. “And is that why hardboiled men are called rough diamonds?”

  “I guess so,” Honey said.

  “I’m glad you know so much about precious stones,” Trixie said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d have thought the one we found was glass.” As they trudged along the path she said, “I don’t really like jewelry. What good is it, anyway? From what I read about rich people, they always seem to keep their jewels in a safety deposit box and wear paste imitations.”

  “That’s true,” Honey admitted. “But the person who lost the diamond we found, or had it stolen from him, evidently didn’t believe in safety deposit boxes. I can’t imagine how it got in the cottage.”

  “I keep telling you,” Trixie said impatiently. “It’s part of the loot crooks must have buried in the floor.”

  “But, Trixie,” Honey objected, “you know as well as I do that the floor showed no signs of having been dug up recently. And if crooks left anything as valuable as the diamond in the dirt floor, they would have come back for it long ago.”

  Trixie said nothing. She knew that Honey was right, but the idea of digging for buried treasure appealed to her imagination so strongly that she refused to admit that her own explanation of how the diamond got into the cottage was silly. After a minute she said, “The reason why the crooks didn’t come back for it when they found it wasn’t with the rest of the loot is that they got killed off in a gang war or something.”

  Honey pushed her bangs away from her hot, perspiring forehead. “Going through the woods is much longer than cutting across the lawn, isn’t it?”

  Trixie chuckled. “Serves you right for having such a big estate. Anyway, it’s worth it, because I’m sure we’ll find more jewels when we dig.”

  Honey sighed. “I’ll be too tired to dig by the time we get there.”

  It was so hot and muggy that neither of them spoke again until they emerged from the woods that ended near a thicket not far from the cottage. It was hard work sawing away the coarse vines that crisscrossed the paneless window facing the thicket. In a short while Honey threw down her saw in disgust.

  “I can’t stand it,” she moaned. “I’ve got two blisters already.”

  “Me, too,” Trixie admitted. “Our left hands are tough from riding, but our right hands are a couple of sissies.” She giggled. “We should have kept the diamond and used it for cutting away the vines.” She suddenly got the uncanny feeling that someone was watching her and
wheeled to peer into the thicket behind her.

  “Jim,” she said sharply, “did you sneak down from the porch to spy on us?”

  “Why, Trixie,” Honey cried in amazement. “Are you crazy with the heat? Look, you can see Daddy and Jim as plain as can be from here. They’re coming down the front steps.”

  Trixie laughed with relief. “I don’t know exactly why,” she told Honey, “but I got the feeling that someone was spying on us. If it weren’t for the poison ivy, I’d go into that thicket to make sure.”

  “Instead,” Honey said, smiling, “let’s go into the cottage and see how much light filters through. Maybe we’ve hacked away enough vines.”

  “Okay,” Trixie agreed. Sure enough, they found when they stood at the entrance, that the inside was no longer dark. “You’re right,” Trixie said, after a quick look around, “this floor hasn’t been dug up recently, but it has been scuffed.”

  “Squirrels and chipmunks, maybe?” Honey asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Trixie said, pointing. “That gouge looks as though it was made by a man’s heel.”

  “It certainly does,” Honey agreed. “And since the roof leaks, it must have been made quite recently. It rained all Monday night, remember?”

  Trixie nodded. “How do you know the roof leaks?”

  “Why, Trixie,” Honey said. “It must. Look up and see for yourself. The wisteria is growing through it in spots, and the weight of the vine has pulled the rafters away from the ridgepole. You can see the sunlight shining through the cracks.”

  “So you can,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “The floor must have been pretty wet after Monday night’s rain. So the heelmark, if that’s what it is, was made after that.”

  “Uh-huh,” Honey said thoughtfully. “And whoever dropped the diamond must have dropped it yesterday or last night when the floor was still muddy. We wouldn’t have seen it if the floor hadn’t dried out since the rain. That’s why he didn’t see it when he left.” She shivered. “I wish we hadn’t found it, Trixie. He’ll be back, don’t worry.”

  “Did you hide it in a good safe place?” Trixie asked.

  Honey nodded. “In my jewel box on my dressing table. It’s got a little secret compartment in the bottom. Nobody knows about it but me. I found it accidentally. The box is an antique; it belonged to my great-great-grandmother.” She frowned unhappily. “I hate having something that doesn’t belong to me, Trixie. Let’s put the diamond back into that little hole where we found it. Then, when whoever lost it comes back, he’ll find it and go away from here.”

  Trixie stared at her. “Now, you’re crazy with the heat, Honey Wheeler. That would be aiding and abetting a criminal.”

  “How do you know a criminal dropped it?” Honey demanded defensively.

  “Because,” Trixie told her, “honest people don’t sneak into abandoned cottages. Honest people don’t trespass.”

  Honey giggled. “You admitted yourself, Trixie, that you and your brothers wandered all over our place before we bought it.”

  Trixie blushed. “That’s different. I’ll admit that a kid might have come in here out of curiosity, but kids don’t go exploring with big diamonds in their pockets.” She added thoughtfully, “I think I know what happened. Fruit pickers are traveling north all along the river now, getting jobs helping farmers harvest their tomatoes. One of them may have spent last night here.”

  Honey sniffed. “A fruit picker carrying a big diamond in the pocket of his overalls?”

  Trixie’s cheeks flamed under her tan. “What I meant was that the fruit tramp might have stolen the diamond from the last farmer he worked for. He might have been harvesting peaches in Georgia and hitchhiked his way up here, planning to pawn the diamond in a town so far away that nobody would suspect him of theft.”

  “Why, Trixie,” Honey cried admiringly. “How smart you are! That makes a lot of sense. People who own big commercial orchards are rich enough to have diamonds. And think how easy it would have been for the tramp to take the pit out of the peach and slip the diamond inside. What a perfect hiding place!” She stopped suddenly and put her finger to her lips.

  Both girls stood motionless as statues, and then Trixie heard it. A twig snapped in the thicket outside the open window. From the woods on the hill behind the Manor House came the sound of barking dogs. Reddy and Patch were on the trail of something—or someone.

  Trixie tiptoed to the window, listening. Leaves rustled; there was the soft whisper of crisscrossing branches being stealthily parted. Then, as the dogs’ excited barking told her that they were racing down toward the cottage, she heard the sound of hurrying feet on the pine needle carpet of the woods.

  “Just as I thought,” Trixie said to Honey. “Someone was in the thicket all the time, listening to every word we said, until the dogs frightened him away.” She grabbed Honey’s arm. “Come on. Let’s try to find out who it was!”

  Chapter 3

  A Warning

  Honey hung back, her huge hazel eyes wide with fright. “Oh, no, Trixie,” she begged. “If it’s the tramp who stole the diamond, he might be dangerous. Let the dogs find him.”

  “They won’t,” Trixie cried impatiently. “Jim just whistled to them, and they’ve gone off toward the house.” She let go of Honey’s slim arm and raced out of the cottage and into the woods. After stumbling a few steps, she realized how hopeless it would be to try to find the eavesdropper, so she came back to where Honey was standing on the door sill of the cottage.

  “You dashed right through the poison ivy,” Honey said, shaking her head. “You’d better hurry up to the house and take a hot shower and lather yourself with laundry soap.”

  “I guess I’d better,” Trixie admitted ruefully, staring at her bare arms and legs. “But I sure would like to know who was spying on us.”

  As they climbed the front steps to the wide veranda that encircled the ground floor of the Manor House, Jim called to them from the garage. “What cooks, girls?”

  “Poison ivy,” Trixie said. “I forgot to be careful, as usual, so now I’ve got to scrub.”

  “Will you ever learn?” he demanded, grinning.

  “Something wrong with the sedan?” Honey asked him. “We saw you poking under the hood.”

  Jim nodded. “A knock in the motor. It would take a better trouble-shooter than I am to find out what causes it. I was just going to get Regan.”

  He walked on toward the corral, and the girls hurried up to Honey’s suite. While Trixie showered, Honey perched on the window sill and said, “Regan is no more of a detective when it comes to the mystery of what makes a motor tick than Jim is. Miss Trask can put her finger on the trouble, but she can’t always fix it.”

  “She’s very handy with a bobby pin and a spark plug,” Trixie said from behind the shower curtain. “But she doesn’t know the difference between a snaffle bit and a curb.”

  “I know,” Honey said. “It’s funny how people who love horses seem to hate motors, and vice versa.” She went into her bedroom and came back with a clean pair of shorts and a matching halter. “You mustn’t put on those contaminated clothes you were wearing when you dashed into the woods. I gave them to Celia and told her to get the laundress to wash them.”

  “I’m a nuisance,” Trixie said as she dressed. “Where are my moccasins?”

  “Here comes Celia with them now,” Honey said. “I asked her to clean them with kerosene, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Oh, thanks, Celia,” Trixie said to the dainty blond maid. “Sorry I caused you so much extra trouble.”

  “No trouble at all, Trixie,” Celia said. “The only trouble with this place is that we have all the help we need except a chauffeur. Miss Trask is always driving somebody someplace just when we need her downstairs.”

  “What’s happening downstairs, Celia?” Honey asked. “The cook quit again?”

  “No, Winnie simply wants to go home,” Celia said. “She’s only supposed to work from nine to twelve, you know, and the noon wh
istle will blow at any minute. The station wagon and the sedan won’t run, and Madam and Miss Trask have the Ford.” She sighed. “I’m glad I live in. Winnie’s husband comes home for lunch and she’s having a fit.”

  The noon whistle blew then, and Honey said, “I’ll call up and order a taxi for Winnie, Celia.”

  Celia shrugged. “Taxis, taxis, taxis. We spend enough money on them to pay the salary of a good chauffeur—not to mention the garage bills. Not that it’s any of my business,” she added, flushing.

  Honey called for a cab to be sent out from Sleepyside right away. As she hung up the phone, she said, “You’re right, Celia. We do need a chauffeur, especially now that Regan will have another horse to take care of. I’ll talk to Miss Trask and Daddy about it.” She smiled at the pretty maid. “Maybe you know somebody in the village who would like the job.”

  “I don’t at the moment,” Celia told her. “But I’ll ask around this afternoon. It’s my day off—after I serve lunch, you know.” She hurried away.

  “Stay for lunch, Trixie,” Honey begged. “Bobby can stay, too; then your mother can just keep right on canning tomatoes without interruption.”

  “I’ll call up and ask her,” Trixie said, reaching for the phone. “She should love the idea of having the kitchen to herself all day.”

  Mrs. Belden did approve. “Watch Bobby’s table manners,” she warned Trixie. “Don’t let him eat with his fingers.”

  “I’ll try,” Trixie said and added to Honey, “I’d better go get Bobby from Regan now. He’s had him in his hair long enough.”

  “Oh, Regan doesn’t mind,” Honey assured her as they left the house. “He loves kids. And, look, Jim’s got Bobby in his hair now.”

  Trixie laughed. Bobby was riding on Jim’s broad shoulders, his plump hands clutched in Jim’s crisp red hair. Jim galloped over to the lawn and gently tumbled Bobby over his head. The little boy rolled down the slope, shrieking with laughter.

  Jim joined the girls on the veranda. “Don’t go near the garage,” he said. “Regan is telling the sedan’s fan belt what he thinks of it. My, what a temper that redheaded man has!”