The Gatehouse Mystery

likes, Trixie. Thanks for suggesting it."
    Trixie hung up and went back to join the others. They greeted her with very dejected expressions.
    "Don't tell her," Mart said sadly. "Let her find it out for herself. The girl sleuth needs practice."
    "What's eating all of you?" Trixie demanded. "Let's go swimming."
    "Oh, Trixie,"- Honey cried. "Just look around the room. Something's missing. We didn't even notice." Trixie's round, blue eyes traveled at once to Honey's dressing table. The jewelry box was gone! "This is too much," she moaned, sinking down on the rug at Mart's feet. "Bobby must have told Dick about the room-switching. He helped you move, remember?"
    Jim nodded. "And Bobby also knew that we didn't move what he called the 'boxlike thing.' He tried to carry it into my old room several times, but we told him firmly that it must stay in here. That's when he discovered the secret compartment, I guess, and put the diamond inside it."
    "Well, anyway," Trixie said, "at last you agree with me that Dick is Suspect Number One. And we still have the diamond. But what kind of a trap can we set now?" Jim shook his head. "We can't be sure that Dick is Suspect Number One, Trixie. Not yet. When Bobby acquires a bit of information he generally spreads it around fast. He could have told any number of people by now that Honey and I switched rooms."
    "I hope you didn't tell him it was a 'see-crud,'" Trixie said forlornly. "If you did, you might just as well have printed the news on the front page of the Sun.' "I did tell him it was a secret," Honey admitted miserably. "It was awfully dumb of me."
    "It doesn't make any difference," Trixie said, trying to cheer her up. "Bobby would have told the world about it, anyway. The point is that our prowler must have made up his mind that it would be too risky,' she went on, "to try and get the diamond while Jim was sleeping in this room. It would be less of a risk to try to steal the box during the day."
    "That's right," Honey agreed. "And today is the day. Winnie, the laundress, always leaves before noon. Helen had the afternoon off, so she left right after that. Marjorie got off early because she worked late last night. Once Nailor leaves the house in the morning, he never comes back except for meals. Celia and the cook have been busy preparing lunch for the past hour. Miss Trask has been in the kitchen putting away the stuff she bought ever since she came back from the village." Honey shrugged. "The whole upstairs has been empty ever since about eleven thirty. Anyone could have sneaked in through one of the side doors, walked calmly up here, and walked out again with my jewelry box while we were out riding."
    "Not anyone," Trixie pointed out. "How about Patch?"
    "His barking in the daytime," Jim said, "doesn't mean a thing. I've got to start training him soon. He barks at the milkman, the bakery truck, the garbage collectors, anything that appears with four wheels."
    "If you don't train him soon," Trixie said with a giggle, "he'll be just another Reddy. He's hopeless." She scrambled to her feet. "If anyone has your box, Honey, it's Dick. And it won't take him long to find the secret compartment. What'll he do when he realizes that he went to all that trouble for an antique jewelry box and some costume jewelry?"
    "I don't know," Honey said with a sigh. "I've just about decided to become a dress designer instead of a detective. Wbat will he do, Jim?"
    "What will who do?" Jim asked.
    "Who do, voodoo," Mart said, waving his hands. "Mumbo-jumbo. Now you see it, and now you don't. What he'll do, of course, is sneak the box back into the house the first chance he gets. If it was Dick who swiped it," he added. "He certainly can't risk keeping a feminine object like that in his room over the garage for very long. If a tramp swiped it, he'll hack it to pieces and leave the wreckage in the woods."
    "I keep telling you," Trixie said crossly, "that a tramp couldn't have swiped it. He might have been hiding in the thicket and heard Honey tell me that she put the diamond in her jewelry box, but he still had no way of knowing which room was Honey's. Even with a floor plan, it would have taken him too long to open all the doors on this floor and peek into every room. Someone downstairs would have heard him."
    "That's true," Brian said thoughtfully. "The finger of suspicion does begin to point toward Dick."
    "Begin to?" Trixie sniffed. "It has always pointed to him. If the jewelry box suddenly shows up