The Mystery of the Emeralds

She sidled along the wall toward the others, as though she wanted to avoid being seen from outside, and then motioned them into the hall.
    Once out of the music room, Honey whispered, “What in the world did you see, Trix?”
    “It was Neill” Trixie gasped. “This time I’m absolutely sure! He was hiding in the shrubbery outside that window, spying on Mr. Carver in the solarium!”
    “Quiet!” Brian warned. “Here comes Mr. Carver with the Sellerses.”
    “Act as if nothing has happened,” Trixie whispered, “until we know what’s going on.”
    The Sellerses were ready to depart, and it took but a few minutes for good-byes to be said. After the great door closed behind them, Mr. Carver turned to Trixie. “Now, young lady,” he said, almost boyishly enthusiastic, “won’t you and your friends join me in my study? I must hear about your interest in Rosewood Hall.” Leading them past the solarium, he went into a smaller, comfortably furnished room that had not been a part of the tour.
    “This is my real hideaway.” He smiled, motioning them to be seated. Then, again addressing Trixie, he said, “Tell me, do your friends know about Rosewood Hall, too?”
    “Oh, yes,” she replied eagerly. “As a matter of fact, we work together. We call ourselves the Bob-Whites.”
    “What do you mean by ‘work together’?” Edgar Carver asked a bit apprehensively.
    “That does make it sound as though we were some kind of gang, doesn’t it, sir?” Jim answered with a smile. “But I assure you we re not.”
    “We call our club the Bob-Whites, and it’s Trixie here who gets us involved in all sorts of situations,” Honey said. “She seems to attract mysteries like a magnet attracts nails.”
    “A mystery, eh?” Mr. Carver said. “Well, let’s not waste any more time. Trixie, suppose you start from the beginning and tell me about the letter you mentioned earlier.”
    With a glance at the others, as though for reassurance, Trixie took from her handbag the ancient missive she had found in the attic and handed it to Edgar Carver.
    When he had finished reading it, he looked up at Trixie, perplexity shadowing his face. She didn’t wait for him to put his question into words but began to tell him the story of her discovery of the letter.
    “You see, Moms and I were cleaning our attic a few days before we came down here. We live in a house that must be even older than this one, and while I was trying to open a sticky drawer, I lost my balance and fell back against the wall.”
    “She broke a couple of boards to smithereens I” Mart said. “But trust our Trixie to turn an accident into a mystery!”
    “Well, it did turn out that way,” Trixie continued with a smile. “Back of the broken board was a little room that no one knew anything about, and in there I found some old clothes from Civil War days and a canteen and stuff. When I was taking them out, this letter dropped out of one of the pockets.”
    “How strange that it should literally have come to light after all these years,” Mr. Carver mused. “But how did you track down Julie Sunderland?"’ he asked.
    “Luck was with us,” Trixie continued. “Honey and I looked up the last name in the phone book and found there was one Sunderland listed in Croton, and, when we investigated, we found it was Miss Julie.”
    “She’s terribly old, but a perfect darling,” Honey said. “She didn’t remember too much that was helpful, but she did lend us some diaries her father had kept, and they gave us the clue that Rosewood Hall was in Cliveden.”
    “We might not have been able to go any further,” Trixie said, “except that Di’s father just happened to be coming to Williamsburg for a convention, and Di sort of—”
    “Sort of sold him on the idea of taking all the Bob-Whites with him?” Mr. Carver asked with a smile.
    “You’ve penetrated our plot,” Mart said. “Yes, that’s what happened, and the fact that Di’s birthday was coming up helped, too. Mr. and Mrs. Lynch gave her the trip for a present.”
    Mr. Carver was silent for some time, apparently lost in thought. Then, with a slight shake of his head, he said, “Well, what you have told me begins to answer some of the questions I have long asked myself. Ever since I was a little boy I’ve heard rumors about a charmed necklace or, you might say, a cursed necklace.” He glanced down at his paralyzed legs.
    “Not that I’ve taken too much stock in the story, mind you, but in