The Hayloft. A 1950s Mystery

me.”
    With my vast experience. Or my half vast experience. “We can’t because…Ed’s here.”
    “Who cares about Eddie?” She sounded petulant.
    “Well, we just can’t,” I said logically. I untangled myself from her and rotated my body forward onto my knees. I crawled out the entrance to the fort, breathed the cool, fresh air, and felt relief. Kate called my name a couple of times, but I wasn’t going back into the spider’s web. She might be good for a nighttime fantasy, but the reality was too much to handle.
    I spit on my fingers and rubbed my mouth vigorously. The lipstick the girls used came off on everything. I climbed down to the floor of the hayloft to see what Ed was doing. He was still prowling around, as if he were Sherlock Holmes. Was he really looking for something?
    “Did you lose your virginity?” I asked, and then realized that if I talked like that he might guess what Kate and I had been doing. “You look like a building inspector.”
    Ed grinned and said, “This barn is well-built. I think it will last a few more years.”
    “Right. Now tell me what you’re really up to.”
    “I’m looking for Grandmother Adelade’s diamond necklace.”
    “If you find it, I get half the proceeds.”
    “If I find it, even if we split it among our three families, there will be enough money to send all the kids to college and build us vacation homes besides.”
    “Okay, I’ll play your silly little game. What makes you think Adelade’s diamond necklace is hidden in the hayloft?”
    Ed suddenly became serious. “You won’t tell anybody else about this.”
    “Look, I’m tired of secrets. My secrets and other people’s secrets. First, I didn’t want people to know I was Ralph’s cousin. But you and Dr. Graves already knew that, so it was impossible to keep it a secret. And I didn’t want people to know I was kicked out of Atherton. You and Dr. Graves knew that, too. Then you told me not to tell about Ralph standing on his hands on the balcony of the auditorium. It turned out that Ruth and half the world already knew that. Now the guy who told me about Dr. Graves taking him up on the catwalk swears me to secrecy, and it’s driving me crazy. I suspect other people know about it and aren’t talking. Anyway, I’m not going to agree to keep any more secrets. If you don’t want to tell me about Adelade’s necklace, fine. Don’t. But I’m not going to promise anything.”
    Ed smiled at my outburst. “All right. All right. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I don’t have any problem with family members knowing about it. As I said, the necklace belongs to all of us. I just don’t want outsiders to know—outsiders who might tear up the barn looking for it.”
    “I don’t see any outsiders here.”
    “You’re right. And I know you’ll be discreet in talking about it outside the family.”
    “I have no plans to talk about Adelade’s necklace to anybody outside the family.”
    “I don’t either.”
    We looked around and saw Kate, who had managed to climb down the hay bales without us knowing it. She had hay in her hair, hay sticking out of her holey old sweater, hay everywhere. She had better clean herself up before she went home or her mother would wonder what she’d been up to. And I could be in big trouble. Or so my thoughts went as I was feeling the guilts again.
    Ed looked at Kate with distaste and said, “You’re always blabbing about bloody well everything to your friends. I hear you on the phone.” He spoke in a high-pitched voice with an English accent. “Eddie’s sweet on Carrie.” And in a normal voice, “I’m not sweet on anybody. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
    “At least, I don’t sound like I just got off the boat from Dover,” Kate said.
    “All right, boys and girls,” I said. “You can carry on your personal discussion later. Right now, we’re talking about Adelade’s necklace, and Ed is going to let us in on a family secret.”
    “Don’t take it so lightly,” Ed said. “I have reason to believe that the necklace may very well be hidden in the barn—specifically in the hayloft.”
    “The first question that comes to mind is who hid it here?”
    “Ralph.”
    “Do his parents know about this?”
    “No, and I couldn’t tell them. Especially right after he died.”
    “What’s the scoop?” Kate asked, breathlessly. “Geese, Eddie, sometimes it takes you an hour to tell what time it is.”
    “Since you’re both in on it, I might as