The Gatehouse Mystery Page 8

  “Oh, yes,” Trixie said. “And we’ve combed every inch of the grass around this rock. Now what?”

  Chapter 9

  A Search

  It was Bobby who broke the silence. “Hey!” he shouted. “I founded a four-leaf clover.”

  Trixie glared at him. “Don’t be so silly. You can count. It’s only got three leaves.”

  “Has not,” Bobby corrected. “I never touch anything with three leaves. Might be poison ivy.”

  “Good for you,” Mart said, lifting the little boy into his arms. “If the kids I took care of at camp had your brains, I wouldn’t have spent so much time drowning them in calamine lotion.”

  “He is smart,” Trixie admitted, and added shrewdly, “Bobby, why don’t you show Mart the outdoor shower Jim rigged up for you?”

  “You’re wasting your breath,” Mart said as Bobby wriggled out of his arms. “I know that age. They stick like burs when you want to get away from them, and disappear like magic at bedtime.”

  “There must be some way we can have a conference,” Brian said thoughtfully. “Don’t you take a nap any more, Bobby?”

  “He does,” Trixie said wearily, “but this being your first day home, Moms let him off. If only we could all speak French, like Honey. For the first time in my life, I wish our parents had been rich enough to send us to boarding school.”

  “I know what,” Honey said suddenly. “Miss Trask! She’s teaching Bobby how to add and subtract with little stones. Wouldn’t you like to play with Miss Trask for a while, Bobby?”

  “Yeah,” Bobby cried enthusiastically. “I founded a pretty, great big stone right here this morning. Wait! I’ll go get it for Miss Trask.”

  He started off but Trixie grabbed his arm. “You found what here?”

  “Hey!” he yelled. “Lemme go. You hurted my arm, badly.” He pulled away from her and raced across the field toward the house.

  “See what I mean?” Mart asked with a shrug. “As soon as you want them for anything, you find that they’re allergic to you. It never fails.”

  “This is no time for joking,” Trixie said briskly. “Don’t you realize that Bobby found the diamond?”

  “Gleeps,” Mart howled. “The pretty, great big stone! Let’s go after him, Trix.”

  “Take it easy, kids,” Brian interrupted. “You’ll only stampede him if you rush after him. Let him bring it back.”

  “That’s right,” Jim agreed. “If you start asking him a lot of questions, he might get so confused he’ll forget where he put it.”

  “The suspense is maddening,” Trixie moaned, collapsing on the rock again. “It would be just like Bobby to have dropped it down the drain when he washed his hands at the kitchen facet.”

  “I’m not even going to think until he comes back,” Honey said. “Suppose he shows up with a plain ordinary rock? Suppose he made it into a mud pie and threw it into the pond? That pond is knee-deep in mud.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to think,” Jim reminded her with a grin. “If you must do it, don’t do it out loud. It gives me the jitters to think of what he might have done with the diamond.”

  “The only bright spot,” Trixie said, “is that he didn’t give it to Dick, his bosom friend.”

  “Oh-h-h,” Mart sighed loudly. “Maybe he did. Maybe that’s why Dick scrammed.”

  Trixie covered her face with her hands, rocking back and forth. “Now we will go to jail, not only for withholding information, but for aiding and abetting a criminal. If only I’d let Honey give the thing to her father the minute we found it.”

  “There’s no sense in crying over spilled milk,” Brian said sharply. “Here comes Bobby, and he is crying, so I guess he doesn’t know where he put it.”

  “I losted it, I losted it,” Bobby was screaming at the top of his lungs. “Holp! Holp!”

  “Help, help, yourself,” Trixie muttered under her breath. “Oh, why do I get myself into these scrapes?”

  “That’s not the question I’m asking myself,” Brian said bitterly. “What I want to know is how you always manage to get us in Dutch with you?”

  “Oh, go away,” Trixie said, on the verge of tears. “Go back to camp. Go join the Navy. I don’t care what happens now.”

  “Oh, Trixie,” Honey cried, joining her on the rock. “Don’t feel so badly. Daddy has plenty of money. He can keep us out of jail.” She threw her slender arms around Trixie. “If the police come around asking for diamonds, Mother will give them one of hers.”

  “Thanks, Honey,” Trixie said forlornly, “but that’s out.” She got up, squaring her shoulders and said to Bobby, “Stop bawling. Tell us where you put the pretty stone, and we’ll all help you find it.”

  Bobby kept right on screaming, and she added in a more gentle voice, “It’ll be our secret. A secret, Bobby. Nobody will know about it but you and me and Brian and Mart and Honey and Jim. A real secret.”

  Instantly the little boy was all smiles. “A real see-crud, Trixie?”

  “That’s right,” Mart said. “Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me. Where did you take the pretty stone after you found it, Bobby?”

  “To the sandpile,” he said promptly. “The one Jim made for me by the shower.”

  “That’ll teach you,” Mart said in an aside to Jim. “Never be kind to this age group.” He grinned, cuddling Bobby closer to him. “And after the sandpile, Little King? Mud pies?”

  “Oh, no,” Bobby said airily. “I put in my pocket.” He turned one pocket of his playsuit inside out, displaying a large hole. “But it wented out.”

  “Where?” Trixie asked dismally. “While you were catching frogs in the pond?”

  He nodded his head up and down, and Trixie held her breath. “But I found it again with my strainer,” he told her. “And then, I put it in this pocket, so it wouldn’t get losted. And then, I went up to see Dickie. Mummy said I could,” he added defensively. “You were down in the garden.”

  “Never mind where Trixie was,” Brian said, smiling down at his little brother. “We’re only interested in where you were all day. Did you show Dick the pretty stone?”

  “No,” Bobby admitted sadly. “I forgot.”

  “Did you put it somewhere in my room,” Honey asked, “while you helped Jim and me move our things?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby said, frowning. “I put it in Jim’s camera, oncet, but I tooked it out again.”

  “Inside my tennis racket case, maybe?” Jim asked. “In the pocket where I keep the balls I said you could have?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bobby said again. “I think I put it in a box. A sort of boxlike thing. But maybe I put it in my teddy bear. He’s got a big hole in his head.”

  “We’ve all got holes in our heads,” Mart said sorrowfully. “Which one of us masterminds dropped it here in the grass?”

  “I dropped it lots of times,” Bobby informed him cheerfully. “But it’s so shiny, I always founded it again.”

  “I tell you what,” Mart said. “I’ll give you a shiny, bright, glittery-like dime if you find it. Why don’t you go get your teddy bear and see it it’s in his head?”

  “Okey, dokey,” Bobby said and scampered off.

  The minute he was out of earshot, they all spoke at once.

  “It’s somewhere in my room,” Honey said.

  “I’ll bet it’s in with my fishing tackle,” Jim said.

  “It’s in the bottom of the pond,” Trixie said.

  “I’m going to sift the sandpile with a strainer,” Brian said.

  “The place to look,” Mart said, “is in the mud under his shower.”

  “What did you say?” they all asked each other.

  Brian held up his hand. “Let’s not do that all over again. This Tower of Babel business will get us nowhere. Let’s all go and look wherever we think it might be. And report at the boathouse in an hour.”

  “It might be in his teddy bear,” Honey said.

  “Not a prayer,” Trixie told her. “If
we’d found a four-leaf clover, yes. But with only crabgrass on our side, no.” She started off for the little pond below the rock garden. “If I don’t show up in an hour, you’ll know I met the same fate as ‘Clementine.’ ”

  “We’ll see that you get a decent burial,” Mart called after her.

  “Don’t bother,” Trixie retorted. “If I don’t find that diamond, I’ll dig my own grave.”

  An hour later, they all met at the rustic boathouse by the lake. “Don’t let’s say anything,” Trixie said. “I can tell from the expression on your faces that you didn’t find it.”

  “You look so cheery,” Mart said, “I’m sure you found it.”

  “I did,” Trixie said. “But when I’d dug my way clear through to China, I found that a little boy there had found it in a rice field. He needed it more than I did, so I let him keep it.”

  “That was real generous of you,” Jim said. “I hope he brings you rice cakes in jail.”

  “I don’t know how you can joke about it,” Honey said. “I searched every inch of my room. I mean Jim’s room. Oh, what do I mean?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Trixie said sourly. “If I had a grappling iron, I’d search the bottom of the lake, just for the fun of it.”

  “I, at least,” Mart put in, “had sense enough to check up on the teddy bear angle. No soap.”

  “If you had any sense,” Trixie said, “you’d check up on the Dick angle. That guy probably picked Bobby’s pocket.”

  “Oh, come, come,” Jim said. “Let’s not go off on tangents. Dick isn’t really a bad guy, Trixie. Just because you don’t get on with him doesn’t mean he’s a dip.”

  “A what?” Trixie demanded. “Did you say a dip? Drip is the word.”

  “Dip,” Mart explained. “It’s short for pickpocket. Don’t ask me why. It’s gangster lingo.”

  Trixie arched her eyebrows at him. “What nice bits of language you picked up at camp. Did one of the small fry teach you?”

  “No,” Mart said grinning. “State troopers. They stopped us just when we were starting down the river. Wanted to know if we’d noticed any strangers lurking around the woods near camp. They’re on the trail of two famous dips.”

  “That word grows on you,” Trixie said. “Pretty soon, you’ll be talking out of the corner of your mouth. Dip,” she repeated. “It sounds better when you say, Dick the Dip. Maybe he’s one of your pickpockets.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” Mart said. “To be sure, to be sure. And he specializes in picking the pockets of fat little boys in playsuits.”

  “Dick the Dick sounds better to me,” Honey said with a giggle. “I’m sure he’s a detective.”

  “A G-man, no less,” Trixie jeered. “It’s well known that they all look like weasels.”

  “Let’s make some sense for a change,” Jim interrupted. “Where else should we look? I’m serious. We’ve got to find it. It doesn’t belong to us, and it does belong to someone.”

  “Don’t rub it in,” Trixie moaned. “Where do you think we should look? And don’t say anything about mud pies. I examined that angle thoroughly, as well as Bobby’s room and his toy box.”

  “All that and China, too?” Mart demanded. “My, what a fast worker you are, grandma.”

  “The pond isn’t very big,” Trixie reminded him. “And neither is Bobby’s room. The toy box was the worst part of it.” Suddenly she jumped up. “Box, that’s it. Remember? He said he put it in a sort of boxlike thing.” She turned to Honey. “Did you look in your jewelry box?”

  “Of course not,” Honey said. “It’s in Jim’s room. I mean, my old room.”

  “I didn’t look in it, either,” Jim admitted. “Do you really think that’s where it is, Trixie?”

  “I’m almost sure of it,” Trixie cried. “Bobby adores boxes. He simply can’t resist them. He’s forever filling the ones in our house with rubber bands and paper clips and stubs of pencils. Shiny stones, too. Come on!”

  She raced up the path and they all hurried after her. Upstairs in Honey’s former room, they saw that the jewelry box was still on the dressing table where she and Jim had carefully left it.

  Honey lifted the lid. “Nothing but costume jewelry.” She took out the tray. “It’s not here.”

  “Try the secret compartment,” Trixie said. “When his fat little hands go exploring, they don’t miss a thing.”

  Honey slipped her hand under the box and one small section of the bottom sprang open. She gasped. “It’s there—in the secret compartment. How on earth did he find it?”

  Trixie grabbed the diamond and clutched it tightly in one hand. “Bobby,” she said weakly, “can find anything if you don’t want him to find it.”

  “How do you like that?” Mart demanded. “Traveling along devious routes, he brought it right back to the exact place from which Honey had just taken it!”

  “And for that,” Trixie said, “I’ll never say another cross word to him.”

  Chapter 10

  A House Party

  “Well, now that we’ve found it for the second time,” Honey said, “where are we going to keep it?”

  “Down at our house,” Mart said promptly. “That’s almost the best part of not being rich. Burglars never bother us.”

  “Okay,” Jim agreed. “Whereabouts in your house? We don’t want Bobby to find it again.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Brian groaned. “How about in the toe of my old riding boots that are too small for me and still too big for Mart?”

  “That’s as safe a place as any,” Trixie said. “If you put them on the top shelf of your closet, way, way back.”

  “Of course,” Jim said slowly, “the sensible thing to do is to turn it over to the police right now.”

  “Let’s not be sensible for a while,” Trixie said. “Suppose one of the men who stole the diamond walks into our trap tonight, and you catch him red-handed, Jim. Then the police will love us. But, if we give them the diamond before we’ve solved the mystery, we won’t be so popular, especially now that all the clues have been ruined.”

  “Obliterated is the word,” Brian said. “And annihilated is a good word to describe the condition we’ll be in after we get through trying to explain to the authorities why we kept the diamond so long.”

  Honey tossed her long hair. “I don’t care. After all the agony I’ve been through worrying over that horrid thing, I don’t think we should give it to anybody until we’ve at least tried to find out who stole it.”

  Mart chuckled. “I’m for forgetting all rules and regulations except the one that says finders are keepers for a few days more, anyway.”

  “You’ve got a point there,” Brian said. “The person who left the diamond in the cottage, accidentally or on purpose, was trespassing. Isn’t there some law which says finders are keepers if you find something on your own property, Jim?”

  “I think so,” Jim said thoughtfully. “Suppose we struck oil. It would belong to us, not to the descendants of the family that originally purchased this land from the State of New York after the Revolution.”

  “Now I feel better,” Honey said. “Although I wouldn’t have the thing as a gift. Besides, we’re really trying to help the police, and we actually have helped them, in a way. That is, if Trixie’s theory is correct.”

  “Let’s hear Trixie’s theory again,” Mart said. “But let’s get cooled off. Can you lend Brian and me trunks, Jim?”

  “Sure,” Jim said. “Let’s see, where are my swimming trunks, Honey?”

  “I don’t know where anything is any more,” Honey complained. “I moved some of my things to your old room, but not all of them.”

  “Me, too,” Jim said, grinning. He pulled a long mirror away from the wall, revealing several rows of shelves. “Yours, all yours, Honey. I guess my extra trunks are in the other room.”

  “Well, hurry up and change,” Honey said. “I’ll lend Trixie a bathing suit, and we’ll meet you down at the boathouse in five minutes.”

  “Wait a mi
nute,” Trixie said, holding her hands behind her back. “Diamond, diamond, who’s got the diamond?”

  “You have,” Brian said, smiling. “Run home and put it in the toe of my riding boot like a good girl.”

  “I’ll do nothing of the kind,” Trixie retorted. “If I so much as darken our door, Moms will think up seventy million chores for me to do. I slaved all morning. You go.”

  “I tell you what,” Mart said cheerfully. “I’ll try to guess which of your dirty little paws is clutching the joo-well. If I guess wrong, I’ll take it home.”

  “Okay,” Trixie agreed. “Right or left?”

  “Right,” Mart said.

  “Wrong,” Trixie said and gave him the diamond. “Run along, Mart dear, and don’t forget to feed the chickens and gather the eggs.”

  “Oh, brother,” Mart groaned. “I forgot that item.”

  “They need fresh water, too,” Trixie said gaily. “Lucky for you, Jim filled the mash hoppers this morning. If I were you, I’d hurry like anything. Dad will be home any minute, and if he sees you, he may suggest that the coop needs cleaning out and fresh litter put in.”

  Mart raced off with a faint moan, and Trixie turned to Jim. “For your information, smarty, shovels are also used for cleaning out chicken coops, not spades.”

  Jim chortled. “My, how you hate to be made fun of, Miss Belden. For your own information, I know more about the care and feeding of poultry than you ever will know.”

  “Keep it to yourself,” Trixie said tartly. “What I’ve been through this summer has turned me against chickens and eggs in any form.”

  “Oh, dear,” Honey wailed. “Miss Trask wants all of you to have dinner with us tonight and spend the night, too. Sort of a welcome-home house party for your brothers, Trixie, but we’re going to have fried chicken.”

  “That’s different,” Trixie said quickly. “As long as they’re not our chickens.”

  Jim gave Honey a surprised look. “How clever you are, little stepsister. When did you arrange to have all hands on deck for the springing of the trap tonight?”

  Honey patted herself on the shoulder. “I am smart. I thought it was a good idea to have, as you say, all hands on deck. That prowler can’t possibly get away from all of us.” She giggled. “To be honest, it was Miss Trask’s idea, not mine—the house party. It’s to last the whole weekend.”