The Gatehouse Mystery

said. "No matter what we do next summer, Mart, we'll have to take Trixie with us. Without us around, she goes completely off her rocker."
    Trixie tossed her short, blond curls. "You and Jim," she told them, "are just too, too funny. Wait and see. We'll find out who dropped the diamond in the cottage long before you do."
    "How do you know it was dropped?" Brian asked.
    "Oh, for pete's sake," Trixie gasped. "You don't think
    somebody deliberately buried it in the floor, do you? I got over the silly idea of looking for buried treasure in the cottage ages ago."
    Honey told them then about the heel prints and the tire-tread marks they had found. "Trixie is really very smart about clues," she finished seriously.
    "Let's all go have a look at those clues," Brian said. "But we'd better first change into shirts and dungarees on account of poison ivy."
    "Once I go home, I'm stuck for hours," Trixie said mournfully. "There are about a thousand chores waiting for me. But Honey will show you what we found." She gathered up her dishes and led the way up the path.
    After they had returned the trays to the kitchen, the Beldens cut across the driveway on their way home. Jim and Honey had stayed in the house to arrange with Miss Trask about swapping rooms for a while.
    As Trixie passed the garage, she saw Dick lounging in the entrance. She stared at him with surprise. One of his eyes was black-and-blue and rapidly closing. His lips were puffy and sore-looking.
    "What on earth happened to you?" she asked, without thinking. "Did you fall out of bed or something, Dick?"
    "No, I didn't," he said sourly. "I was just trying to be helpful. Had a little extra time this morning, so I thought I'd give Regan a hand with the horses."
    "How could you give him a hand?" Trixie demanded. "He left last night for his day off and won't be back until this evening."
    "That's just what I mean," Dick snapped at her. "He's not here to groom the horses, so I thought I'd do them for him. The big black gelding kicked me. He ought to be shot."
    Trixie could not suppress a laugh. "You should have better sense than to fool around with horses when you don't like them. Besides, Jupe didn't need a grooming. Jim rode him yesterday, and he never puts a horse away without brushing it and cleaning its hoofs and everything."
    Brian nudged her. "You might introduce us, Sis."
    "Oh," Trixie cried, embarrassed. "Dick, these are my brothers, Brian and Mart."
    "Hi," the new chauffeur said coolly. "Hope you have better manners than your fresh sister."
    Out of the comer of one eye, Trixie saw that Brian and Mart were furious; but they said nothing. Once they were out of earshot, however, Mart exploded. "Say, that guy has a nerve, calling you fresh, Trix. I've a good mind to take a poke at him."
    "Trixie was fresh," Brian said easily. "But I'd just as soon blacken the guy's other eye for him."
    "That's it," Trixie cried excitedly. "Dick was in a fight. Jupe never kicked him. If he had, the chauffeur would have a broken nose and no front teeth."
    Mart nodded. "You've got something there, Trix. But who did the job on his face, do you suppose?"
    "I can't imagine," Trixie said. "Regan has a red-hot temper, and I don't think he likes Dick much, but he left for his day off right after supper last night. Maybe the new gardener and Dick got into an argument."
    "The one you said looks like a little monkey?" Brian asked. "If he blackened Dick's eye he must look more like a gorilla."
    Trixie giggled. "You're right; Nailor couldn't possibly have beaten Dick up. He's so shriveled, Honey thinks of him as a giant peanut. Nailor's even older than Gallagher, and he was positively ancient."
    They had reached the chicken coop down in the hollow, and Trixie darted inside to see if there were any eggs. "Not a one," she said. "The hens are molting. And thank goodness, as of now, the chickens are your chore, Mart."
    "Okay," he said cheerfully. "I like our feathered friends a lot better than I do the preschoolers. Gleeps, Trix! I must have made five million bread and butter and peanut butter sandwiches this summer."
    "By the way," Brian interrupted, "it's an old joke that when a boy comes home with a black eye, he always tells his father, 'You ought to see the other fellow.' So maybe we should look around for the gardener's body."
    "Nailor," Trixie said, "is very much alive. I saw him mowing the lawn down by the cottage a little while ago."
    "There's another old joke," Mart said thoughtfully. "When a guy