The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

sometimes...
    “No, ye will not,” McDuff said firmly, and his big hand bit into her arm as he piloted her ahead of him down the narrow stairs. “Just what would a wee lass like you have done if ye had met up with a dangerous criminal instead of with me?” he asked sternly.
    Trixie tossed her curls defiantly. Maybe he didn’t mean to, but McDuff was hurting her arm.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream • 15

    DIDN’T YOU HEAR me calling you?” Miss Trask asked as Trixie and McDuff joined the others in the courtyard. “We have to leave now. The castle is closing.”
    “But we can’t leave now,” Trixie protested. “We can’t let Gray Cap get away again.”
    “He has to be here somewhere,” Honey agreed. “I went and talked to Mart down at the gate. He and the porter both say nobody could have come down that drive without their seeing him.”
    “The guards I talked to said the same thing,” Anne reported. “And that’s the only other breach in the walls.”
    “I looked everywhere that’s open to the public,” Jim said. “I sure would hate to play hide-and-seek in this castle. There are a million hiding places.”
    A stout, red-faced guard beckoned impatiently from the Clock Tower. “Move along, now,” he called.
    “I think he’s the one that popped up when I fell in the Great Hall,” Trixie whispered to Honey.
    “I don’t know what we would do if we did come across the man,” McDuff was telling Miss Trask.
    Trixie overheard him and looked indignantly at Jim. “I bet he doesn’t even want to catch Gray Cap,” she muttered. “It would probably delay him on his trip to Scotland.”
    “Well, it is a sticky problem, Trix,” Jim told her. “We have to leave tomorrow, too, you know. Even if we had enough evidence to make charges, we wouldn’t be here for the trial. And as I said, I doubt Andrew Hart will want to advertise what happened to the Rose Room. So perhaps he won’t even press charges.”
    Trixie couldn’t believe her ears. Even Jim was ready to give up the search!
    She marched up to the stout castle guard. “There’s a pickpocket hiding somewhere on your grounds,” she informed him. “He followed us all the way from London, where he snatched my friend Honey’s purse. But the thing he was looking for wasn’t in it, and then we saw him again in the market square yesterday—in Stratford—and last night our room at the Hartfield House was ransacked, so would you please let us stay and look for him?”
    The guard seemed completely befuddled by Trixie’s impassioned appeal. “Are you the young lydy as caused the disturbance in the Great Hall this afternoon?” he inquired.
    Not seeing what that had to do with anything, Trixie was unsure how to continue.
    “Come, Trixie, there really isn’t anything further we can do,” Miss Trask called.
    “Well, then, will you look for him?” Trixie asked the guard. “And will you call us up and let us know if you find him?”
    “You could ring us up at the Hartfield House in Stratford,” Anne said. “And reverse the charges. My father is Andrew Hart.”
    “I know the gentleman,” the man puffed importantly. “And if there’s anybody shut up in Warwick Castle, which I doubt, ’e won’t get out till the gytes open tomorrow.”
    “The castle doesn’t open till one o’clock on Sundays,” Anne said as she and the three Bob-Whites hurried down the drive to the outer gate, followed by McDuff and Miss Trask.
    Trixie looked up at the sheer stone walls on either side. No one could possibly climb them. This late in the afternoon, not a single ray of sunshine filtered through the giant treetops above.
    Trixie shivered. “I wouldn’t like to spend the night here myself,” she told Honey.
    “Not even in one of those fancy beds?” Honey laughed.
    “Don’t you want to catch that man?” Trixie asked suspiciously.
    “Well, as Mr. McDuff said, what could we do if we did? After all, we’re going home tomorrow, and I don’t think he’ll follow us to Sleepyside! My necklace is safe, and we’ve solved our mystery.”
    Not as far as I'm concerned , Trixie thought.
    Mart was waiting for them at the outer gate. He came up close to his sister and muttered in her ear, “I told the porter all about Gray Cap. He says they’ll look around.”
    “I’m glad somebody takes me seriously,” she told Mart gratefully.
    “The porter says there’s no way anybody could get out after the gate is locked,” Mart went on. “All Gray Cap can do is