The Gatehouse Mystery

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 comer 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 Drip sounds better to me," Honey said with a giggle. "But maybe 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 pencil stubs. 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 any-thing 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."

A House Party • 10

    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 in the 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