The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

said, the tradition is that we’re descended from the Shakespeare family—through his sister Joan, who married William Hart. But even so, there are still descendants in the United States, Canada, and Australia, too.”
    “Our Honey, practically kissin’ kinswoman to the kaleidoscopic keystone of all literature!” Mart was so impressed that he almost choked on his milk.
    “Oh, Mart, I think you’re exaggerating,” giggled Honey, pounding him on the back.
    “I think we should go right on to Stratford-on-Avon,” said Miss Trask. “That’s where the Shakespeares lived. The homes of the poet’s father and mother are both nearby, and the house he was born in, as well as his grave, are still right there in Stratford. After four hundred years, they haven’t been changed. The whole town is full of Shakespearean memorabilia.”
    “Stratford-on-Avon—that reminds me of Sleepyside-on-the-Hudson,” Trixie said, starting to feel a bit homesick again.
    “Shakespearean memorabilia,” Jim repeated. “Sounds like it’s right up Mart’s alley!”
    “Alley?” huffed Mart with renewed composure. “I may have a few eight-lane superhighway cloverleafs perhaps, but no alleys!”
    “I always suspected that you were born with green matter where your gray matter should be,” Trixie put in.
    “Well, at least there’s a method to my madness,” said Mart.
    It was settled that they would make the trip on Monday. “That will give you folks a chance to see a little more of London tomorrow,” Miss Trask said. “And I can finish up the research.”
    “But don’t you want to see the sights?” Honey asked.
    “Oh, I’ve been to London before,” Miss Trask assured them.
    Trixie suddenly realized that there were a lot of things about the former governess that they didn’t know. She tried expressing that to the others as they left the museum later in the afternoon. Miss Trask was staying behind to do some more work. No one seemed interested in Trixie’s remark.
    “I’m just grateful that we have such a nice, everyday kind of person to travel with,” Honey said.
    Jim nodded absently, watching as Mart buttonholed a tall black man in a purple robe and red turban on the museum steps.
    “Wouldn’t you know?” Jim’s green eyes twinkled. “People of all nationalities visit this center of learning, and Mart seems to want to talk to them all.”
    Trixie looked around at young German scholars with denim knapsacks; Hindu women in turquoise or lemon-colored silk saris; smiling, bespectacled Japanese and Chinese students; white-collared clergymen and midiskirted nuns; and chattering French teenagers. All were streaming in and out of the huge gray buildings.
    Then Trixie caught sight of a more familiar figure, lurking behind the pillar at the iron gate.
    “There! There he is!” She pointed wildly. “That little creep—in the gray cap—”
    “Where?” Honey and Jim both looked, but the pickpocket had already slithered into the crowd.
    “Are you sure it was him?” Honey asked.
    “Sure, I’m sure,” Trixie cried. “He must be following us!”
    “But why would he do that?” Honey asked with a little shiver.
    Trixie thought for a moment. “Well, don’t you remember how I told you that I’m almost sure I saw him in the Hall of Kings, when you were showing us the Queen’s necklace?” Trixie spoke slowly, figuring it out as she went along. “And we were talking really loud about your necklace. And then he went for your bag down in the Chamber of Horrors...
    “But it wasn’t in my handbag,” Honey protested.
    She looked anxiously about.
    “He wouldn’t know that,” Trixie pointed out. “And besides,” she whispered, “it is today!” They had taken it along with them to compare it with the exhibits of Elizabethan jewelry in the museum.
    “Maybe we’d better—” Jim was starting to say, when Mart sauntered over.
    “Well,” Mart said, “let’s go. My African friend says we should take a bus instead of the tube. He says you can see a lot of London from the top deck.”
    “Great idea,” Jim agreed. “We’ll get away from that pickpocket, too.”
    “I’m sure he’s following us,” Trixie muttered stubbornly as they climbed the narrow winding steps of a swaying double-decker. According to a sign on the big red omnibus, it was going to Piccadilly Circus.
    “A circus!” Honey said. “That sounds like fun. We can get off there.”
    “Circus is a British expression for a circular area where