The Gatehouse Mystery Page 9

  Trixie collapsed on Honey’s big bed. “I can’t stand it. It’s too good to be true. Did Moms agree?”

  “She certainly did,” Honey informed her with a gay smile. “She said you deserved a vacation. And guess what?”

  “One thing at a time, puh-leeze,” Brian begged. “Does Miss Trask really want all three of us Beldens eating you out of house and home for forty-eight hours? And have you enough room?”

  “Of course,” Honey said. “Miss Trask is very thrilled about the whole thing. There are twin beds in Jim’s old room for Trixie and me. It’s across the hall. And right next to it is another room with twin beds for you and Mart.”

  Trixie hugged her impulsively. “Oh, Honey, it’s the nicest thing that ever happened to us.”

  “It was supposed to be a surprise,” Honey said, “until the last minute. But when Mart looked so depressed about cleaning the chicken coop, I couldn’t stand it. He’ll be back soon, I’m sure, with a suitcase which your mother already packed with whatever clothes you’ll need.”

  “Moms,” Trixie cried, “is an angel. She’s much too good to me. I don’t deserve it. I’m always complaining.”

  Brian patted her arm affectionately. “You’re not so bad, Sis. Dad is very proud of you. He was telling us how hard you’ve worked to earn the money for Jed Tomlin’s colt.”

  “I wish I had my own horse right now,” Trixie said. “Then we could all go riding this evening when it gets cooler.”

  “That’s the best surprise of all,” Honey said smugly. “There are five horses in the stable right now. Miss Trask arranged with Mr. Tomlin to rent us that sweet little black mare for the weekend. You remember Susie, Trixie?”

  “Oh, oh,” Trixie cried. “I fell in love with her the day we went over there with your father and Jim to look at horses. Is Susie really in the stable now?”

  “I think so,” Honey said. “Anyway, if she isn’t, Regan will go and get her. He’s due back from his day off on the six o’clock train. He can ride over to Mr. Tomlin’s on Jupe and lead Susie back.”

  “I can do it for that matter,” Brian offered. “It’s only a three-mile round trip. Gosh,” he finished, “I’m dying to meet Regan.”

  “He’s a great guy,” Jim said. “And let’s give him a break. Let’s go down to the stable and see if Susie has arrived. If she hasn’t, you and I can go get her. I’ll ride Jupe, and you can take the new horse, Starlight. He’s a chestnut gelding, and I think you’ll like him, Brian.”

  “Great,” Brian said. “Let’s go. We don’t need to bother with boots, do we? I outgrew mine this summer.”

  “Boots,” Jim said with a grin. “What are they? Only Dad and Mother wear ’em around here.”

  After the boys left, Trixie and Honey changed into swim suits. When they came down to the porch, they saw Jim and Brian riding down the driveway. Then Mart came into sight carrying a suitcase.

  “Gleeps, creeps, and weeps,” he shouted. “Have you heard about the house party, Trix?”

  “Isn’t it super?” she asked. “Did you run into Dad, and what did he say?”

  “He arrived just as I was leaving, and he thought the whole idea was great.” Mart hurried inside with the suitcase and came back in a few minutes wearing his swimming trunks. “Where are Jim and Brian?”

  The girls explained on the way to the boathouse.

  “This is too much,” Mart exploded. “Gosh, Honey, can we all go for a ride through the woods this evening?”

  Honey nodded and slipped a cap on over her shiny, brown hair. “We’re going to have dinner early especially so we can ride around eight when it begins to cool off. And we can take one last dip in the lake after that if we want to. And tomorrow morning we can ride or swim before breakfast, or both. Miss Trask thought we might like to fix our own breakfast down here on the grill. There’s a waffle-iron somewhere around and skewers so we can barbecue tomatoes wrapped in bacon slices.”

  “Yummy-yum-yum.” Trixie licked her lips and blinked her blue eyes. Mart pushed her off the diving board. Then Honey pushed him off, lost her balance, and fell in. But she beat them all to the raft.

  There, they stretched out in the late afternoon sun, and Mart said, “Let’s hear your theory of how the diamond and the footprints came into our lives, Trix. I want to know why Honey thinks the police are going to love us when we confess.”

  “Well,” Trixie began, “suppose two robbers spent Tuesday night in the cottage. Then they had a fight. The dirt floor was plenty scuffed. During the battle, one of them dropped the diamond and it got ground into the mud. They left; and when they realized it was missing from their loot, they came back. But,” she summed it up, “we had already found it. So you see, if it hadn’t been for us, the thieves would have it. That’s what Honey means when she said we have already helped the police.”

  “From you,” Mart said, “it sounds swell. But a police dick could find a million holes in that theory.”

  “How slangy can we get?” Trixie demanded. “All we seem to talk about these days are dicks and dips. Jim had the nerve to say that when Honey and I open our detective agency, we’d call ourselves Moll Dicks, Incorporated.”

  Honey giggled. “It grows on you. I’m beginning to like it. Moll Dicks. Um-m-m. What do you think, Mart?”

  “I think,” Mart said, “that you girls had better stick to your knitting. Not that Trixie knows the difference between a p-u-r-l and a p-e-a-r-l.”

  “And I hope I never learn,” Trixie said with a sniff. “I hate needles and jewelry, especially diamonds, at the moment. By the way, is it where it should be, or did you feed it to the chickens by mistake?”

  “I wish I’d thought of that,” Mart said dreamily. “A chicken’s crop would be the safest place in the world. No, it’s not where it should be.”

  “Why not?” Trixie demanded.

  “Because,” Mart said, “Moms had already packed Brian’s boots in the bottom of the suitcase. She didn’t know they’re too small for him, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her.”

  “Don’t keep us in suspense,” Trixie shouted. “WHERE IS IT?”

  Mart rubbed his chin with his thumb. “I think I’ll have to start shaving soon,” he said thoughtfully. “Have I got a five o’clock shadow, Honey?”

  Honey shook with laughter. “No, old man,” she told him, “you’ve got a long gray beard, and it’s very becoming.”

  “Stop it,” Trixie interrupted. “I wish you did have some hair on your chin, Mart Belden. I’d yank it out by the roots.”

  He rolled off the raft and came up gurgling. “Help. Or, as Bobby would say, holp!”

  Trixie and Honey dove off and ducked him. “Please, Mart, puh-leeze,” Trixie begged. “Tell us where you put the diamond.”

  “We’ll drown you, if you don’t,” Honey warned.

  Mart promptly climbed up the ladder and they followed. “It couldn’t be in a safer place,” he said. “Remember that sewing basket some poor deluded female relative gave you last Christmas, Trixie?”

  Trixie nodded. “Aunt Alicia. She tried to teach me how to tat when I was eight. You would think she would have learned after that horrible experience. What about my so-called sewing basket? I don’t even know where it is.”

  “I do,” Mart said. “It’s in the attic. When I lifted the top, after brushing away several yards of cobwebs, a few moths flew out. So I said to myself, ‘If only moths frequent this spot, this is it.’ Upon further examination, I deducted that, at one time, the strawberry-shaped pincushion must have come in contact with Bobby, for it, too, had a hole in its head. So I thrust the diamond inside it, replaced the top on the basket—and the cobwebs—and dashed downstairs without arousing anyone’s suspicions.”

  Trixie sneered. “Says you! Where, pray tell, was Bobby while you were exploring the jungles of the attic with rod and camera?”

  Mart gave her a superior glance. “In his room replacing the toys you flung out of his toy box. Brother, is he furious! Revenge, he tells me,
will be sweet. Saccharine-sweet!”

  Trixie bit her lip. “I meant to put all that junk back, but it hardly seemed worthwhile. Even the blocks looked as though rats had been gnawing them. Is Moms mad at me?”

  Mart shrugged. “We had hardly time to discuss your tidy nature, our mother and I, but Bobby is not mad. He is wild. Especially since he was assigned the chore of making his small room navigable again.”

  Trixie tossed her damp, blond curls. “Serves him right. He’s wrecked my room plenty of times, and I had to pick up the pieces.”

  “Well, anyway,” Honey put in, “it’s good to know that the diamond is in a safe place.”

  “I’m not at all sure of that,” Trixie said worriedly. “Suppose Bobby decides to throw my sewing basket into the trash can for spite? He’s too young to know that I despise the thing.”

  “Pooh, pooh,” Mart said airily. “He probably has no idea that it belongs to you. From the evidence, I would say that it was relegated to the attic on Christmas night.”

  “Stop using big words,” Trixie said crossly. “It’s getting on my nerves. I wish I knew exactly when I did put that sewing basket up in the attic. Moths didn’t really fly out when you opened it, did they, Mart?”

  “That,” he admitted, “was a slight exaggeration. But the cobwebs were not exaggerated.”

  “They mean nothing,” Trixie said. “They grow like weeds during the hot summer weather.”

  “They don’t grow,” Mart corrected her. “If you had my superior education, you would know that they are spun.”

  Trixie ignored him. “I think I’d better go home,” she said, “and put that diamond in another place. I don’t trust Bobby. I don’t trust him when he’s in a sunny mood, and if he’s sulking, well, anything could happen.”

  She dove off the raft and swam back to the boathouse.

  Chapter 11

  Regan Has a Secret

  But Trixie did not go straight home, after all. By the time she had changed into dungarees and a clean shirt, Brian and Jim had come back with the rented horse.

  Trixie met them as she was crossing the driveway on her way to the path that led down to the hollow. The sight of the lovely little black mare drove all other thoughts from her mind.

  “Oh, Susie,” she cried, throwing her arms around the horse’s glossy neck. “You lovely, beautiful, gorgeous thing! Please, Jim, may I ride her right this minute?”

  “No bareback riding on rented horses,” a voice said from the stable. Regan joined them, grinning.

  “Oh, Regan,” Trixie said. “I’m so glad you’re back. This is my brother, Brian.”

  Brian leaned down from the saddle to shake hands with the pleasant-faced groom. “Boy, it’s great to meet you, Regan.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Regan said with a friendly smile. “Is Mart the blond boy with the crew cut who’s down at the boathouse with Honey?”

  “That’s right,” Trixie said.

  “Except for a difference in height,” Regan said, “you look enough alike to be twins. But you and Brian don’t look at all alike. You take after your father, don’t you, fella?” he asked Brian.

  Brian nodded. “I’m supposed to.”

  “It’s hard to believe,” Trixie teased. “Dad’s a very good-looking man.”

  “And your mother is a very pretty lady,” Regan said. “It kills me to admit it, Trixie, but you look enough like her to be her own daughter.” His green eyes twinkled. “If you ever become a lady, which I very much doubt, people might even call you pretty.”

  “I have no intention of becoming a lady,” Trixie said impudently. “Ladies sit around sewing—” She stopped, remembering where the diamond was.

  “You couldn’t sit still long enough to thread a needle,” Regan was saying in his cheerful voice. “Some day you’re going to have to acquire patience. All you kids should learn to drive cars while you’re in high school. Hear Dick’s going to give you a lesson tomorrow, right?” he asked Jim.

  “That’s right,” Jim said. “If he gets back.”

  “And why shouldn’t he be back tonight?” Regan demanded, his freckled hands on his hips. “What’s a black eye? I’ve had many a shiner in my time and never took up a busy doctor’s time with it.”

  Mart and Honey joined the little group in front of the stable then. After Mart had been introduced to Regan, he said, “Do I smell fried chicken, or is it wishful thinking?”

  Honey sniffed. A delicious odor was wafting out from the kitchen. “You smell correctly,” she told Mart. “Dinner must be almost ready. Come on, we’d better change into dry clothes.”

  Regan’s sandy eyebrows shot up with surprise. “Dinner at this unfashionable hour, Honey?” he asked. “Since when? It’s only six-thirty.”

  “Just for tonight,” Honey explained. “We want to go for a ride through the woods at eight, if it’s all right with you, Regan.”

  “It’s fine with me,” he said, “if you all groom your horses when you come back. I’ve got to drive Celia and the cook into the village, if Dick doesn’t show up, and drive them back again. They’re going to the movie at the Cameo. Thought you kids might be planning to take it in, too.”

  “We’re going tomorrow night,” Honey told him. “The radio said it’s going to rain, so we thought we’d better ride while we can.”

  “The horses need exercise, all right,” Regan said. “What’s the matter with you kids? You used to live in the saddle.”

  “It’s been so hot,” Honey explained quickly. “But now that Brian and Mart are home, we’ll be sure to ride the horses enough. We’ll take turns after Susie goes back to Mr. Tomlin.”

  “I have a feeling Susie is here to stay,” Regan said mysteriously.

  “Oh, Regan,” Trixie cried excitedly. “What makes you think so?”

  He hummed softly to himself and strode into the tack room. Trixie raced after him. “Don’t be like that, Regan,” she begged. “Is there really any chance that the Wheelers are going to keep five horses after this?”

  He hummed a few more bars of the tune, then said, “If you can keep secrets from me, Trixie Belden, I guess I can keep one little secret from you.”

  Trixie’s cheeks flamed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled unhappily.

  Regan hummed while Jim and Brian put the three horses in their stalls. When they left the stable, he said in a low voice to Trixie, “No secrets, huh? Miss Trask was telling me about your nightmare, and she also told about Honey and Jim switching rooms.” He hummed another bar. “Since when did the early morning sun bother Honey, and since when did you have bad dreams?”

  Trixie tossed her head. “All right,” she said. “Since when did Jupe go around kicking chauffeurs in the face? If you swallowed that one, I should—”

  “Now I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he interrupted with a chuckle. “Is that how Dick is supposed to have acquired the shiner?”

  “That’s what he told me,” Trixie said. “But I didn’t swallow it.”

  “He was just kidding you,” Regan said. “Dick is so scared of horses he wouldn’t even put his foot in the tack room for fear a bridle might bite him.”

  Honey appeared, then, wearing dungarees and a polo shirt. “Come on, Trixie,” she said impatiently. “Celia and the cook are having a fit. They want to get through so they can go to the early show. You’d better go eat, too, Regan,” she went on. “They want to leave at seven-fifteen.”

  “I don’t know why they can’t walk into town once in a while,” he said, scrubbing his hands at the tack room sink.

  “It only takes twenty minutes to bike in,” Trixie said. “If Dick never comes back, you’d better buy bikes for all the help, Regan.” She and Honey hurried away and into the house.

  “What made you say that?” Honey asked. “Don’t you think Dick is coming back?”

  “I’d like to know why he left in the first place,” Trixie whispered. “As Regan pointed out, people with black eyes don’t usuall
y rush in to see big New York specialists.”

  “I never thought of that,” Honey admitted. “I got a black eye when I was hit by a tennis ball at camp one summer. Nobody paid any attention to me. And I was supposed to be delicate in those days.”

  They joined the others in the dining-room then.

  “Just put everything on the table, Celia,” Miss Trask was saying. “Then you and Cook run up and dress for the movies. Helen and Marjorie can do the dishes tonight. I’ll send them home in a taxi if Regan isn’t back in time.”

  “Thank you, Miss Trask,” Celia said. “It isn’t often that we can take in the early show.” She hurried through the swinging door to the kitchen.

  “What I want to know,” Mart said, hungrily eyeing the enormous platter of fried chicken, “is why the cook hasn’t got a name like everyone else around here.” He smiled at Miss Trask. “It’s none of my business, but I’m curious about the private life of the ‘feelthy’ rich.”

  Miss Trask smiled back at him. “There’s a very simple explanation, Mart. So far, we have never been able to keep a cook long enough for all of us to remember her name.”

  Honey giggled. “Mother calls them all Rachel although we’ve had six different ones since Rachel quit. It was Daddy who hit on the idea of calling them all plain ‘Cook.’ They don’t seem to mind, Mart.”

  “You ought to hire a chef,” he said. “Men are more stable than women.”

  “Will you stop using big words?” Trixie exploded. “It’s getting tiresome. Didn’t you have anything to read at camp but a dictionary?”

  He glared at her. “What was big about that one? Two little syllables. And surely, a famous equestrienne like you must know the definition of stable when it’s a noun.”

  “I know both definitions,” Trixie informed him. “But why couldn’t you have simply said that men are more reliable than women? Not that they are.”