The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

dining room—and Miss Trask was wearing an evening gown! It was a soft shade of pink, with a high neck, long sleeves, and a skirt that swished elegantly around her silver sandals.
    Trixie couldn’t remember ever seeing Miss Trask in anything other than one of her trim, tailored suits. “Jeepers, Miss Trask,” she blurted without realizing how tactless she sounded, “I didn’t know you wore dresses like that!”
    “You look perfectly beautiful,” Honey assured her.
    “Even more pulchritudinous than usual,” agreed Mart brightly.
    “Thank you, everyone,” Miss Trask said crisply. “Now, if people will kindly take their eyes off me, I believe there’s a dinner to be eaten.”
    The dinner, which turned out to be delicious, was served by a jolly, apple-cheeked English lad in his late teens. Besides the woman in black, who they’d found out was Mrs. Hopkins, the housekeeper, he and the cook seemed to be the only servants at Hartfield House.
    Midway through her fresh strawberry shortcake, Trixie realized that Miss Trask hadn’t been eating very much throughout the meal. She had mentioned at one point that she was too excited about seeing Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, but that confused Trixie. It wasn’t like Miss Trask to be, well, excited.
    Another thing that confused Trixie was how strangely quiet McDuff was being. In fact, now that she thought about it, he always talked a great deal on their sight-seeing trips, but he hardly ever seemed to say a word inside Hartfield House... particularly when Mr. Hart or Anne were around.
    After dinner, the boys rushed upstairs to put on their seldom-worn suits. As the girls were getting into their dresses, Trixie tried to discuss the new mystery with Honey.
    “Why d’you think McDuff’s so quiet all of a sudden?” she asked. “If ever an icky compliment was called for, what with Miss Trask looking so fabulous at dinner and all, you’d think now would be the time.”
    Honey shrugged. “Maybe he was struck dumb,” she giggled.
    The moment they were on their way to the theater in the Maroon Saloon, however, McDuff was off again with his extravagant praise. “Och, but ye’re the pink of perfection this evening,” he told Miss Trask.
    “Nonsense, Gordie,” she answered. “Everyone in the car looks perfect tonight.”
    ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’ Mart quoted under his breath.
    “I think you mean that something is rotten in the state of Scotland,” Trixie muttered back.
    “That’s Denmark,” Jim said softly. “And anyway, both of you have the wrong plays. We’re going to see Macbeth tonight, remember?”
    The Royal Shakespeare Theatre, from the old stone bridge, was a blaze of golden lights shining across the dark river. Tourists in evening dress were milling around the entrance as the Bob-Whites made their way through the crowd. McDuff bought programs, and then they all settled down in their seats.
    To Trixie’s delight, they were sitting in the front row. “It’s the closest thing to actually being on stage,” she said.
    Honey was reading all about Macbeth in the program. Suddenly she whispered, “Trix, look!” She leaned over and put her finger under the name of one of the actors in the cast of characters.
    “ ‘Third murderer,’ ” Trixie read from the program. “ ‘Gregory Hart.’ ”

Gregory • 11

    DURING INTERMISSION, McDuff urged the Bob-Whites to go have an ice. “It’s a tradition in the British theater,” he told them.
    Trixie wasn’t sure whether it was tradition or the chance to be alone with their chaperon that McDuff was more interested in, but the young people were happy to follow the crowd to a balcony overlooking the Avon. The golden lights of the theater were reflected enchantingly in the river.
    An ice turned out to be lime sherbet in a cardboard cone.
    “After all that blood and gore in the play,” Mart said appreciatively, “this really hits the spot. And I don’t mean the ‘damned spot,’ either.”
    “Macbeth must be the bloodiest play Shakespeare ever wrote/’ said Honey with a slight shudder.
    “Right,” Trixie chortled. “For all the special effects, they probably go through a case of catsup bottles a night!”
    Just then, Anne and Mr. Hart walked up to the Bob-Whites. Trixie wanted to dive into the Avon. Here she was, surrounded by sophisticated theatergoers in an elegant theater, and she was snickering about catsup! Andrew Hart looked more than ready to turn on his