The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

o’clock.
    Jim and Mart arrived just as they did, out of breath from running.
    “Where’s Miss Trask?” Honey asked. There was no sign of either her or McDuff.
    “Jeepers, where could she be?” Trixie asked anxiously. “She told us to be here for sure—and now she's gone.”
    “Let’s ask someone around the hotel,” Jim suggested, leading the way out a side door.
    Mrs. Johnson, the proprietor of the little hotel, was in the garden, picking roses. “You’ve no call to worry,” she reassured the Bob-Whites. “The gentleman as was here yesterday came by in a car and
    picked her up. That was about noon, I should say.”
    “She went off without us?” Honey’s big hazel eyes were puzzled. “Didn’t she leave any message?”
    “No, luv, not with me she didn’t.”
    “O Miss Trask, Miss Trask, wherefore art thou, Miss Trask,” Mart said lightly, but he, too, looked concerned.
    “I told you he was a crook,” Trixie wailed. “He’s probably kidnapped her and is holding her for a huge ransom.”
    Jim and Mart burst out laughing. “Oh, come on, Trix,” Jim said. “You’ve really gone out on a limb this time.”
    “They probably went somewhere for lunch,” Honey said doubtfully, “and just got caught in a traffic jam or something.”
    “But it’s almost three o’clock,” Trixie said indignantly, after they had waited a while longer. “I’m going to call Scotland Yard.”
    Before Trixie could move from where she was sitting on the hotel steps, a dark red sedan drew up under the portico of the Garden Hotel, and McDuff got out of the driver’s seat on the right side of the car. Then he walked around to open the door for Miss Trask, who, even Trixie had to admit, certainly didn’t look as if she’d been kidnapped.
    “I’m so sorry,” Miss Trask said. “We didn’t notice the time.” Her short gray hair was blown every which way, and her blue eyes were shining. Her brown tweed suit was adorned with a yellow chiffon scarf that Trixie had never seen before.
    The Bob-Whites couldn’t believe their ears. Miss Trask, the efficient manager of the Wheeler estate— forgetting the time?
    McDuff was peeling a five-pound note from a fat roll of bills. “Here ye are, lass,” he told Trixie. “I certainly appreciated the loan.”
    Trixie turned bright red. Gleeps, she gulped silently. I really goofed this time. How wrong could she get? He wasn’t a crook, or a con man, or a kidnapper, or even a fortune hunter, since Miss Trask didn’t have a fortune. He must be what he appeared to be—their friend. I’ll just have to make it up to him, she resolved. From now on, I'm going to be as nice as pie.
    ... Even if I don't like him all that much, she couldn’t help adding to herself.
    Aloud she mumbled, “You’re quite welcome.”
    The car McDuff had picked out for them was a four-door with just enough room for the six of them. “I wasn’t sure whether ye wanted an estate or a saloon,” he said.
    “What do you mean, saloon?” Mart asked. They were all standing around the car, admiring it. Its bright chrome sparkled in the sunlight.
    Miss Trask laughed. “Mr. McDuff says that an estate is what a station wagon is called here,” she explained. “And a saloon is a sedan.”
    “A saloon?” giggled Honey. “I thought a saloon was where the cowboys are always going in Western movies.”
    “Got it!” Mart snapped his fingers and ran his hand fondly over the gleaming, dark red fender. “Remember when we went to Vermont, and Di and I named our beige Volkswagen the Tan Van? Well— get this—I hereby christen this car the Maroon Saloon!”
    “Oh, Mart, that’s neat!” squealed Honey.
    “If Di were here,” Trixie teased, “she’d think Mart’s wit was second only to Shakespeare’s.”
    Mart pointed a finger and ordered, “ ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ ”
    Instead of obeying, Trixie made a face at him and got into the car.
    In a short while, the Maroon Saloon was heading north, Gordie McDuff at the wheel and Miss Trask sitting beside him. The four Bob-Whites were a little cramped in the backseat, but they didn’t mind. It was a sunny day, and the countryside was greener than the emeralds in Honey’s necklace. Soft white clouds sailed across an azure sky.
    When McDuff’s deep voice broke into a Scottish song, they all joined in:

“Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing,
‘Onward,’ the sailors cry.
‘Carry the lad that was born to be king,
Over the sea to Skye.’
Loud the