The Indian Burial Ground Mystery

it’s missing?” Charles said, horrified. “I never stole the
diary. What was Harry doing there?”
    “How should I know?” Trixie snapped.
    “And if you didn’t steal it, who did? It’s gone, and I saw you running
off with it. I was looking out the window of the archive room at about
three-thirty that afternoon—you know, the same day you went there with Brian.
Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
    “Three-thirty?” Charles said angrily. “I wasn’t there then. We went in
the morning. You can ask Brian.”
    “Why should I?” said Trixie. “I’m sure you wouldn’t steal the book right
out from under his nose. That’s why you went back to get it that afternoon.”
    Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I didn’t steal the book. The big
question is, who else would want Edward Palmer’s diary?”
    “But I saw you,” Trixie said firmly.
    “You only think you saw me. Let me think a minute. You say
you saw Harry Kemp waiting outside the Historical Society, so it could have
been Harry who stole the book. We can’t be sure. By the way, he’s not really my
friend, he’s a friend of Professor Conroy’s. I didn’t meet him until the day we
were packing for the dig. And the Volkswagen belongs to Professor Conroy, not
to Harry. You can check the registration if you like.”
    “And I suppose Harry was the ghost, too?” Trixie asked smugly.
    Charles suddenly looked very shamefaced. His ears turned bright red.
“Look, I’m really sorry about that stunt,” he said, staring at his hands. “I
wanted to scare you girls away from the treasure.”
    “Ah-hah!” Trixie whooped. “You admit it. I thought you were in New York that night,
working at your job.”
    “It was my night off,” Charles said sullenly. “I didn’t scare you
enough, though. You came back the very next day.”
    “Now that we have established that you were in Sleepyside the night of
the burglary,” Trixie said, “you could have broken into the Wheeler mansion.”
    “I could have,” Charles snapped. “But I didn’t!”
    “Wait a minute, Trixie,” Honey interrupted. “I just realized something.
We saw the ghost at the same time the burglars were in my house.”
    Trixie pulled herself up short, then she looked at Charles. “That’s
true,” she murmured, squinting her eyes thoughtfully. “One person can’t be in
two places at the same time.”
    “Am I cleared of guilt yet?” Charles asked harshly.
    Trixie thought for a moment. Then she said, “No. You could still be
involved with Harry, whether you were in the house that night or not. Besides,
how did Harry find out about the gold if he’s not your friend? You were pretty
worried when you thought Honey and I were about to discover your secret. So why
would you tell Harry?”
    “Believe me, I didn’t want to tell that weasel about the gold,” Charles
said bitterly.
    “He was loading my stuff on the truck the day we were leaving to come up
here,” Charles went on to explain. “One of the cartons fell off the back of the
truck and broke open. He saw my papers and notes. He said he’d help me look if
I gave him some of the gold when we found it. And I needed the help. I knew I’d
be working at the dig during the day, and at my job at night. That wouldn’t
leave much time in between. I knew that once he’d found out about the gold, he
was going to help me look whether I wanted him to or not. So I figured that
sharing it was better than letting him take it all for himself.”
    “That still doesn’t explain the burglaries,” Trixie said, pressing on.
“If what you say is true—that the yellow car is Professor Conroy’s, and Harry
Kemp is his friend—then you’re really accusing Professor Conroy
and Harry of breaking into the Manor House last night. How do I know you aren’t
just covering yourself by accusing someone else?”
    “I tell you, I’m not a burglar!”
    “But you’re saying that a close friend of the Wheelers—Professor
Conroy—is a burglar.”
    “Wait a minute,” Honey said. “Maybe neither Charles nor Professor Conroy
is a burglar. Maybe Harry Kemp is, and the professor doesn’t know anything
about it.”
    “The two of them are very close friends, I tell you,” Charles said
shrilly. “Harry’s in his tent all the time talking business, although I can’t
imagine what that business could be.”
    “That’s a nasty claim to make about a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler,
Charles,” Trixie said smugly. “You know that Professor