The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

Honeys Inheritance ● 1

    TRIXIE BELDEN’S blue eyes were stormy. She and her family were assembled around the kitchen table at Crabapple Farm, having what Trixie called a council of war. Her parents and her older brothers, Brian and Mart, were present—everyone except six-year-old Bobby.
    “I want to play war, too,” he had insisted.
    “Not as long as you’re the interrupting-est little boy in Westchester County, New York!” Trixie had told him, too upset to be more tactful. “Why don’t you go outside and play with Reddy? He could certainly use the exercise.”
    Fortunately, that suggestion had appealed to him, which meant that Trixie was free, she hoped, to present her arguments in relative peace and quiet.
    “Now, what’s this all about?” her father wanted to know, looking up from the newspaper.
    Trixie took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. A trip to England—that was what it was all about! The parents of Trixie’s best friend, Honey Wheeler, had offered to take the Bob-Whites of the Glen with them on their trip to England the following week. Besides Trixie and Honey, the Bob-Whites included Brian, Mart, Diana Lynch, Dan Mangan, and Honey’s adoptive brother, Jim Frayne. The semisecret club had shared many good times together all over the United States, but never before had they been across the ocean. So far, however, Trixie’s parents had maintained that such an expensive trip was out of the question for the Belden young people. But Trixie Belden was not one to give up an argument that easily.
    “Well,” she said finally, “I just don’t think it’s fair for you and Moms to say that Brian and Mart and I can’t go to England, till you hear all the reasons.” Like the fact that Honey will be crushed if Fm not allowed to go, Trixie thought to herself. And the fact that Jim is going , and it’ll be so much fun....
    “Let’s hear your reasons,” Peter Belden said in his most businesslike voice.
    “For one thing,” Trixie began, and then she noticed that her father was sneaking a look at the newspaper! “Mo-oms,” Trixie protested, and Helen Belden reached over and gently removed his reading glasses.
    “I’m listening,” he said with a grin. “But, as I told you before, there’s no way you kids can afford a trip abroad, and the Wheelers have done too much for this family already.”
    “But, Dad,” Trixie pleaded, “Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler have tons of money, and they’re going on business anyway and taking their own private plane, like when they took us to St. Louis and when they sent us to Vermont, so it wouldn’t cost all that much, and besides, Honey says her parents are always saying that they’ll never be able to do enough for the Beldens, because when Honey first moved here, she was so lonesome and sickly and scared of practically everything, and now she’s so healthy and has so many friends, and—”
    “Whoa!” chuckled Mr. Belden. “How many reasons was that?”
    “ ‘I would my horse had the speed of your tongue,’ ” Mart quoted dryly. He had recently written a paper for his English class on Much Ado About Nothing , and ever since then he’d considered himself the ultimate expert on Shakespeare, especially on quotations of his work.
    “My tongue happens to be speaking for you, too, you know,” Trixie told her brother indignantly.
    Always ready for an argument, Trixie and Mart were almost the same age. At fifteen, he was eleven months older. They looked very much alike, too, with their mother’s sandy blond hair and bright blue eyes, and their own personal freckles. People who didn’t know them often thought they were twins. Lately, with Mart letting his short hair grow out, the resemblance was even closer, much to Mart’s dismay. Deep down he was one of Trixie’s staunchest supporters, but he did enjoy needling her. One of the ways Trixie got back at him was to tease him about being her almost-twin.
    “You don’t have to speak for me, Trix,” said Brian as he selected an apple from a big bowl of fruit on the red-checked tablecloth. “I already told you, I’ve got to stay home and work.” Brian was seventeen, with dark hair and eyes like his father’s, and he was more serious than the “almost-twins.” He was planning to be a doctor, and he needed every cent he could earn for medical school.
    “I almost forgot,” sighed Trixie. “But just because you have to work, and Dan has to work, and Di has to go to Milwaukee with her parents