The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

new home,” she cried, her round face rosy with excitement. “Isn’t that lovely? Elizabeth will be so pleased.”
    “Where is your house?” Trixie looked up and down the road, but she couldn’t see anything that looked like a house. Honey and the boys looked puzzled, too, much to the Harts’ amusement.
    “The Tweedies have bought a home in Hathaway Hamlet,” Anne explained, pointing to the big thatched cottage. “I expect in America you would call it an apartment.”
    “Just one up, one down, and a wee garden,” Miss Mary said proudly.
    The Bob-Whites were more puzzled than ever.
    Miss Elizabeth was waiting to greet them inside the wooden gate. “Do come in,” she said heartily.
    Their “apartment” consisted of two main rooms— one upstairs and one downstairs, as Miss Mary had said. A small staircase next to the fireplace led to the bedroom, and there was also a modern kitchen and bath, with the “wee garden” at the back door. The white plaster walls and dark-beamed ceilings were distinctly Elizabethan.
    “It looks just like Anne Hathaway’s cottage, only it’s cut up into apartments!” Honey exclaimed. “And there’s a whole row of them.”
    “It’s even older than the Hathaways’,” Miss Elizabeth said.
    “Now that we own property,” her sister chimed in, “we are called City Burgesses and can vote in the Council.”
    “And pay the rates,” Miss Elizabeth added wryly. “So Hathaway Hamlet is a thatched condominium,” Mart chuckled.
    It was the Tweedies’ turn to look puzzled.
    “Usually, apartments are rented in the United States,” Mart explained. “But sometimes people buy into a building, and they call it a condominium.”
    “A thatched condominium,” Miss Elizabeth repeated, and the sisters laughed delightedly.
    After serving their visitors a delicious tea, the Tweedies escorted them back to the wooden gate, and the Bob-Whites set out across the fields again with Anne and Gregory.
    Trixie turned around for one last good-bye wave to the Tweedies, and then she whirled back to the Harts. “Please,” she said, “tell me what you were going to say before—about McDuff.”
    The Harts looked at each other again, and Anne nodded. “Tell them, Gregory,” she said. “They really ought to know.”
    “Well—mind you, I’m not saying he’s not a proper chap,” the English boy said reluctantly. “But....”
    “Gregory has studied acting, and he’s been around very good actors all of his life,” Anne said, “and he thinks—go on, Gregory, tell them!”
    It s just that he’s no Scotsman,” Gregory said. “What do you mean?” gasped Trixie.
    “That accent’s as phony as the wig I wore in the play last night,” Gregory said simply.

To Market, To Market ● 12

    BEFORE DINNER that evening, the Bob-Whites held a brief emergency meeting and decided against telling Miss Trask what Gregory had told them.
    “Maybe his accent sounds different because he’s lived all those years in Canada,” Honey said.
    “Well, if we notice anything else suspicious, I think we should tell her everything we know,” insisted Trixie.
    “Let’s keep our eyes and ears open,” said Jim. “But in the meantime, he’s going to Scotland in a few days, anyway. We can tell her after he’s gone.”
    After dinner, the Bob-Whites met with Gregory and Anne, who got the necklace out of the safe for them and came into the Rose Room to examine it.
    “Ah, now I know what it reminds me of,” Anne said, then hesitated. “But perhaps I shouldn’t mention it, in case I’m wrong.”
    “Oh, tell us,” begged Trixie and Honey.
    “Well, are you going to be visiting Warwick Castle?” Anne asked.
    “The famous medieval fortress with all the priceless artwork inside?” asked Mart. “Yes, McDuff said something about taking us there the day after tomorrow.”
    “What I’m thinking of is in the Great Hall there,” Anne said. “I’ll try to arrange it so I can go there with you, but if I can’t, I’m sure you’ll be able to spot what I’m talking about.” She looked at her watch and opened a folder she had brought in with her. “It’s getting late, but I did want to show you these genealogy charts that our mother made.”
    By the time the Bob-Whites finished poring over the charts, they were too sleepy to do more than say good night. They were still yawning over breakfast in the Crimson Room the following morning, although an announcement from Miss Trask soon jolted them awake. They