The Mystery off Glen Road

necklace or a ring would do it.”
    Mart uttered a sound that was identical with the yelp that Reddy emitted whenever Bobby accidentally stepped on his tail. He drained his water glass and wordlessly took it over to the sink. Mrs. Belden turned around from the counter at that exact moment, and they almost collided. She was carrying a large platter of fried chicken, and she set it down on the table mat in front of her husband’s plate. Then she turned and stared at Trixie with a quizzical expression on her youthful, pretty face.
    “My, honey,” she said, “you look nice. I’m so glad you like that dress. But, Trixie, dear, jewelry would ruin the effect. Perhaps that strand of seed pearls your Aunt Alicia gave you last Christmas, but nothing else. Where is that necklace, Trixie?”
    Trixie gulped both air and water. She hadn’t the faintest idea of where that seed-pearl necklace was. The fact that she had lost it almost immediately after she received it was one of the reasons why her father had insisted upon putting her diamond ring in the safe-deposit box.
    Brian spoke up then. “I know where that necklace is,” he said coldly. “Bobby planted it in the garden last spring so he could grow some pearl bushes. He planted it seed pearl by seed pearl, didn’t you, Bobby?”
    Bobby did not deign to reply. He wrinkled his nose at Trixie and said, “You smell funny. Mostly, you smell all nice and sunshiny the way Reddy does after he’s gone swiming in the lake. Now you smell sort of—”
    Mart came back to the table with his glass then and said, “We know, Bobby. None of us will ever forget the day you got the flea powder can mixed up with Moms’s talcum powder. Reddy will never forget it, either.” He stopped behind Trixie’s chair and sniffed elaborately. “Yes, Bobby, you’re quite right. She does smell very much the way Reddy did on that unfortunate occasion.”
    Trixie, although consumed with the desire to throw a plate at Mart, mentally counted to ten. “ ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,’ ” she quoted from Romeo and Juliet.
    Mart groaned and said to Brian, “She’s gone in for non sequiturs in a big way, no?”
    “Yes,” Brian said succinctly.
    Trixie ignored them. “The point is,” she said sweetly, “since I haven’t got a seed-pearl necklace, I simply must have that diamond ring Jim gave me. Please, Dad, won’t you get it out of the bank? I mean, Ben is the sophisticated type of boy who expects his date to be at least dressed.” She turned to her mother. “Honestly, Moms, I feel positively naked in this dress without any jewelry.”
    Mrs. Belden hastily went to the refrigerator and came back with a large wooden bowl of tossed green salad. “Yes, Trixie,” she said in a strange voice, “you’re quite right. That ring is yours; you earned it, and if you really want to wear it while Ben Riker is visiting the Wheelers during the Thanksgiving holidays, there is no reason why you shouldn’t. That is, of course, if your father has no objections.”
    Trixie’s father, who was serving the fried chicken, said nothing. He merely nodded, but Brian folded his arms and cleared his throat.
    “Well, I have some objections,” he said staunchly. “Ben Riker is a creep of the first water. Because he goes to a private boarding school, his vacation begins next weekend. It’s going to be bad enough to have him and his practical jokes interfering with our work on the clubhouse. But if Trixie is going to swoon around flashing diamond rings in that goon’s face, well, I—I quit!”
    Trixie clenched her fists in her lap, yearning to say, “Oh, Brian, I’m only doing it for your sake. I despise Ben Riker as much as you do.” Aloud, she finally managed to say, “Naturally, Brian, because you and Mart are so uncouth, you don’t appreciate Ben. He is, well, I might as well confess it—my very own ideal.”
    Mart emitted another feeble yelp, and then silence reigned again. They were all looking at Trixie with expressions on their faces that said plainly that they thought she had lost her mind. All of them
    except Bobby, who was one of the few young people who had never been a victim of Ben’s practical jokes. “I ’dore Ben,” Bobby said complacently. “He’s one of my very best friends. He holps me catch frogs.”
    Mart said to Brian in a loud aside. “He sure does. And what does he do with said frogs? He puts ’em in the cook’s bed. So the cook leaves, and Miss Trask