The Mystery of the Emeralds

“it’s a lovely necklace. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
    She held it up for Di and Honey to see, giving them a covert wink, and they, too, said it was beautiful. Then she closed the box and turned her attention to the cover. Although it was quite rusty, it still showed signs of printing on the top. No one seemed to notice Trixie’s absorption in it. They were too busy listening to Jenkins, who, now that the necklace had been so much admired, was becoming more expansive by the minute.
    “The young lady’s right,” he said. “It’s a rare piece and worth a lot of money. I could have sold it to a dealer friend of mine, but I’ve got a sentimental streak in me, and I figured Mr. Carver, here, would like it.”
    “You mean—” Mr. Carver started to say.
    “I mean I’m willing to let you have it for a fraction of what the thing is really worth,” Jenkins said, a cunning smile on his face. “It’s yours for four hundred dollars, and you can’t say that’s not giving it
    away. You’ll never get a bigger bargain.”
    Trixie didn’t bat an eye as she gave the box back to Mr. Carver. She prayed silently that he wouldn’t make a deal right then and there. She desperately wanted time. There were several things she had to know. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor had there been from the moment she had taken a good look at the contents of the little tin box.
    “Four hundred dollars!” Mr. Carver said slowly, again opening the box and gazing at the necklace. “I’m afraid it will take some time to raise such a large amount of money. Could you give me a day or so to see what arrangements I can make?”
    “Yes, yes,” Jenkins said, his manner becoming more and more affable as he saw the possibility of his offer being accepted. “Take your time. I don’t want to put no pressure on you. What say if I come back tomorrow afternoon?”
    “Well, that doesn’t give me much time,” Mr. Carver said, his voice uncommonly low, ‘Taut I’ll see what I can do.”
    This arrangement being apparently satisfactory to Jenkins, he seemed eager for the interview to be over. After pocketing the box and giving a perfunctory nod in the general direction of the Bob-Whites, he went away.
    Mr. Carver sat slowly stroking his forehead, until Trixie came over and plopped down on the floor in front of him.
    “Do you really believe what Jenkins told you?” she asked softly. “About the “big bargain’?”
    “Why, yes, child,” he answered, putting his hand on her head. “Why should I doubt him? He had the proof with him, didn’t he?”
    “What are you getting at?” Jim asked. He and the other Bob-Whites clustered around her, waiting to hear what she had to say. “Don’t you think Jenkins is on the level?”
    “No, I don’t believe him for one minute!” Trixie replied confidently. “And I’ll tell you why. Did you take a good look at that box, Mr. Carver?”
    “Why, no,” he said, “as a matter of fact, I didn’t. I just saw that it was old and rusty, as though it had been exposed to the damp for a long time.”
    “There’s more to it than that,” Trixie said. “It was a box that some kind of patent medicine originally came in, and on the cover, way down at the bottom, in little letters, it said, ‘Patented in 1908.’ So how could Ruth have hidden the necklace in it before the Civil War in 1861?”
    “Maybe Jenkins just used that box to put the emeralds in to bring over here,” Di suggested.
    “No, I don’t think so,” Trixie insisted. “Remember he said, ‘This is the box I found at Rosewood Hall’?”
    “That’s right, he did,” Brian said. “Then how do you figure he found the emeralds?”
    “I was just coming to that,” Trixie answered, taking a deep breath. “In the first place, the necklace in that box was nothing like the one Ruth was wearing in the picture in the locket!”
    “I don’t remember it very clearly,” Mr. Carver said. “Get me the locket, will you, Jim? I want to have another look.”
    Jim brought the gold heart from the desk drawer and handed it to him.
    “You’re right, Trixie!” he said excitedly. “It isn’t the same!”
    “Well, how do you know the necklace in the picture is the same one we’re hunting for?” Mart asked.
    “We don’t, for sure,” Trixie admitted, “but I assumed it was the same one, because the locket was a Christmas present to Ruth, and the emeralds had a special association with Christmas. Remember, they were