The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace

out before telling us. That’s where he’s gone now.”
    “What kind of an idea?” Trixie was bursting with questions. “How’s he going to check it out? Can he do it before Mrs. Wheeler gets here?”
    “I believe there’s someone he wants to talk to at the theater,” Mart said, “but I’m not sure.”
    “At the theater,” Honey said thoughtfully. “I wonder what he could find out there.”
    Trixie was so excited she could hardly finish her breakfast. “When’s he coming back? Do you think he can find out why they copied the necklace? Maybe somebody wanted to steal the real one and—”
    “Calm down, old girl,” Mart said, “before you drive us all bonkers.”
    Miss Trask and McDuff had eaten earlier than the
    Bob-Whites and were saying their good-byes out in the vestibule. McDuff was planning on taking the late morning bus to Glasgow. After breakfast, the Bob-Whites went out to say good-bye, and soon the tall Scotsman was waving heartily at them from a taxi. He was leaving the Maroon Saloon there, to be picked up by the rental company later.
    Trixie heaved a sigh of relief, but there were tears in Honey’s eyes. Honey and I probably never will agree about that man , thought Trixie as they all went back into the house.
    Miss Trask went straight to her room. “I must get a letter off to my sister,” she said. “I’ve been so frightfully busy, but I did want it to have a Stratford postmark.”
    “She’s as bad as my brother,” Trixie whispered to Honey. “Ten days in England and he’ll never talk the same. And anyway, I figured she’d be taking McDuff to the bus station, to see him off.”
    “She probably just wants to be by herself for a little while,” Honey said.
    The housekeeper, Mrs. Hopkins, entered and informed Honey that she had a telephone call.
    “It was Mother,” Honey said when she came back moments later. “She won’t be arriving till late afternoon, and she’d like to spend the night here tonight. She could probably have McDuff’s room, I told her. Then we’ll meet my father in London tomorrow morning and fly back to New York.”
    “One more night in England,” Trixie said happily. The Bob-Whites decided that there was time for a cruise on the Avon that morning. Gregory was still at the theater, but to everyone’s surprise, Anne was free to accompany them.
    “Here go my last two shillings,” said Trixie as the Bob-Whites and Anne paid their admissions and boarded the Swan of Avon.
    It was a lovely ride—through a canal, under the old stone bridge, past private estates with beautiful gardens that sloped down to the river. At one of the woven wood fences, a little boy stood all alone, watching wistfully as the merry boatload passed by under huge chestnut trees and weeping willows.
    “Poor little rich boy,” Honey murmured. “I used to be lonesome like that, before we moved to Sleepyside and I met Trixie, and we found Jim, and started the Bob-Whites—”
    “And here we are chugging along on the Swan of Avon ,” Trixie marveled. “Can you believe it?”
    When they got back to Hartfield House, Gregory was there. He had news for them about the necklace, he said, but he seemed worried about something else. “Where’s Father?” he asked Anne.
    “I haven’t the foggiest,” she said.
    The housekeeper had been expecting Mr. Hart to go over her shopping list with her. “I’ve searched the house from top to bottom,” she said. “ ’Tisn’t like him to go off like that.”
    “Could he have decided to go riding, after all?” Jim asked. “Have you checked the stables?”
    Jim grinned modestly when Gregory clapped him on the back. “Bully for you, old fellow,” Gregory said. “That’s exactly where he’ll be.”
    Sure enough, when they reached the stables, Mr. Hart’s handsome black stallion was missing. The Bob-Whites decided to stay and help Gregory with some chores he had put off when he’d gone to inquire about Honey’s necklace.
    “Well, what did you find out?” Trixie burst out at the first possible moment.
    “Come now,” Mart said, “don’t pop your blooming cork!”
    “What’s the bloke talkin’ about?” Gregory dead-panned back. When everybody had finished laughing, he told them that he had consulted with the curator at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Museum. “It occurred to me that Honey’s necklace might have been used as costume jewelry in Shakespeare’s plays,” he said.
    “Gleeps,” Trixie cried immediately, “so