The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

We have to find our way back to the hotel before Miss Trask decides to call in Scotland Yard.”
    “Only ten minutes?” Mart sighed. “Ah, ‘the time is out of joint,’ as the Bard would say.”
    “Only when you’re wasting it,” Trixie said pointedly, and the boys took off.
    It was near teatime, and not many tourists were left in the subterranean vaults. Trixie and Honey stuck close together as they wandered from one Horror to the next.
    “I’m beginning to wish I’d gone with the boys,” quavered Honey.
    “Just another minute,” begged Trixie. “If we’re going to be detectives, we have to know what we may be up against some—oh, my goodness!”
    In turning a corner in a narrow passageway, Trixie had brushed against a rigid figure standing in a shadowed niche in the wall. “Look—isn’t he strange?” she muttered.
    Honey inched closer and, without a word, clutched Trixie’s arm.
    The strangest thing about him, thought Trixie, was that he looked almost exactly like that bony gray figure she’d seen up in the Hall of Kings. For a moment, the thought crossed her mind that the museum had “planted” these spooky figures in various places, as a practical joke to scare the tourists. No, that doesn't make any sense, she thought, moving back a step. This has to be the same one I saw upstairs. His pallid face was set in the same evil leer, his beady black eyes sparkled with the same brilliance, and he was dressed in the same dirty gray clothes.
    “Wonder what kind of criminal he is,” breathed Honey.
    Trixie snapped her fingers. “A pickpocket, I bet!” Miss Trask had warned them about pickpockets in London, and this was exactly Trixie’s idea of what a pickpocket would look like. She looked around for a plaque identifying this figure, but could find none.
    “Come on, Trixie,” Honey pleaded. “Let’s get out of here.”
    “Wait a second.” Trixie gazed steadily into the man’s beady eyes, until—she was almost certain—the pale white eyelids twitched.' Defiantly, she kept on staring.
    “He looks so real ,” Honey whispered.
    “Guess what,” Trixie said grimly as the eyes wavered. “He is!”
    The stiff figure broke into motion and grabbed at Honey’s arm.
    “Hang on to your bag!” Trixie yelled.
    The little man tried to wrench the handbag from Honey, who screamed as the leather strap bit into her shoulder.
    Trixie tried to pull him away, but he was surprisingly strong. His bony hands felt like steel claws as he grappled with them in the dim passageway.
    Bob , bob-white! Trixie whistled shrilly.
    But the boys were nowhere near.

Clues in the Catalog ● 4

    ’ERE NOW, wot’s all this?”
    Trixie’s whistle had instantly produced a guard, probably her old friend from the entrance, although she wasn’t sure.
    “Quick, catch him!” Trixie urged. “He’s getting away!”
    “Catch ’oo?” the guard asked, looking around.
    The little gray man was nowhere in sight. He had wriggled out of Trixie’s clutches like a slippery fish and taken off down the dim passageway.
    “Oh, Honey,” she wailed. “Did he get your bag?”
    “No, I—I hung on to it,” Honey said, still shaking.
    “Why don’t you go after that pickpocket?” Trixie demanded angrily of the guard.
    The guard just stared at her.
    “There! He was standing right there.” Trixie pointed forcefully at the niche in the wall. “We thought he was a wax man at first, because he looked so awful, like a famous criminal. Only he wasn’t wax—he was alive.” Trixie was talking as fast as she could, so that the guard would still have time to catch the pickpocket. “Oh, please, hurry!”
    The guard frowned. “Young lydy,” he said, “I cahn’t myke out a word you’re sying, but I will ’ave to arsk you to leave. This is the second time you ’ave cre-yted a disturbance.”
    “You—you’re throwing me out?” Trixie gasped, incredulous. She stared at the guard.
    Honey squeezed her hand. “We’d better go.”
    Trixie bristled all the way back to the hotel. Fortunately, the Bob-Whites were given very good directions by a policeman, or bobby, as the English called their police.
    Miss Trask was waiting for them. She showed a slight flicker of a smile when she heard how Trixie had got herself and Honey evicted from the museum, but she grew serious when the talk turned to pickpockets. “From now on, I think you should all stick together, at least while we’re in London,” she said. “And why doesn’t