The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

everyone give me their passports? We’ll leave them in the hotel safe, just in case we run into any more pickpockets.”
    When the Bob-Whites awoke on the following day, a Saturday, it was raining.
    “It seems to rain a lot in England,” commented Honey.
    “Nobody pays any attention, though,” Trixie said, yawning. “They carry umbrellas just as naturally as they wear shoes.”
    “Brollies, they call them,” Mart put in.
    They and Miss Trask were planning to spend the morning at the British Museum and Library, following up on the research already begun by Miss Trask. At the museum entrance, they not only had to get special reading passes but also had to be searched for bombs.
    “London has survived more bombs than any great city in the world,” Miss Trask told them, “mostly in the Second World War, but even today they have to keep a close watch for terrorists. In the forties, squadrons of Nazi planes flew over every day, destroying or damaging about eighty percent of the houses in London.” Miss Trask’s kind blue eyes clouded over as she told them about England’s terrible ordeal.
    “I guess there wouldn’t be any London,” Trixie said, “if our country hadn’t entered the war.”
    “I don’t know about that,” Miss Trask demurred. “The people of Great Britain were very brave. They fought without us for over two years, and then they continued to fight beside us.”
    “Thank goodness this museum isn’t much like the Wax Museum,” Honey said as the group walked through the large exhibit halls toward the reading rooms.
    Gigantic black sphinxes and bas-reliefs from ancient Egypt towered over them. There were huge marble columns from the Parthenon and almost an entire Greek temple in one of the halls.
    “The purpose of this museum is a little different, too,” said Miss Trask. “It’s designed to preserve and interpret the history of humanity, specializing in the history of ancient and medieval civilizations. Many individuals have donated their entire collections of objects and information, making this one of the most famous museums in the world.”
    “Sounds like the Bob-Whites,” Jim said with a grin. Whenever the Bob-Whites got a reward for solving a mystery or capturing some criminals, or whenever they found something valuable, they always gave it to someone who needed it more than they did. In fact, that was the secret purpose of their club—to help people.
    “And the British Library is one of the largest libraries in the world,” Miss Trask went on. “It has about eight million books. We could spend our whole lives just in the British Museum and never run out of fascinating new exhibits,” she added regretfully. “But we have only ten days to find out about Honey’s necklace and Mrs. Wheeler’s ancestors.”
    “Research is fun, though,” Jim said. “Even if it is hard work.”
    “It’s just like solving a mystery,” said Trixie as Miss Trask showed them how to use the library’s card catalogs and reference books. “One clue leads to another! You find a card that leads you to a book, and that book leads you to another book or maybe an old map or an exhibit.”
    Trixie, working on Elizabethan jewelry, was not as successful in her morning’s work as was Honey, who researched her ancestors, the Harts. Honey shared some of her findings during the lunch break in the museum cafeteria, which looked just like any ordinary American cafeteria with very reasonable prices and good food.
    “Did any of you ever hear of Nancy Hart?” she asked.
    “I believe she was a heroine of the American Revolution,” Miss Trask said. “Didn’t she live in Georgia?”
    “Yes, and she had this famous ride, like Paul Revere’s. The road she galloped down is still called the Nancy Hart Highway,” Honey said. “She dressed up like a man—which was easy enough for her to do, since she was six feet tall! Then she made this log raft, tied together with honeysuckle vines, to sneak into the British camp to spy on them. Hart County and the town of Hartwell and a lot of other places were named after her.” Honey’s hazel eyes were glowing.
    “Imagine me being descended from a Revolutionary spy!”
    “Maybe.” Miss Trask smiled. “Of course, she could be in another branch of your family.”
    “How come we had to come to the British Museum to find that out?” Trixie asked. “I thought your mother’s ancestors lived in England.”
    “Well, they did,” Honey said. “Just as Mother