The Mystery off Glen Road

grimly. “There is a poacher. So we’d better tell the boys right away.”
    “Heavens, no!” Trixie cried. “They’d only make
    fun of me. You know how they are, never suspicious of anything unless a crime is committed practically under their noses.” She pulled Lady to a walk as they approached the macadam road. On the other side of it was Mr. Lytell's little store.
    “I’ll wait here for you,” Honey offered, “and hold Lady’s reins. But hurry, Trixie, please.”
    “Okay,” Trixie said and swung out of the saddle. Just then a man she had never seen before came out of the store. He was tall and gaunt with broad, slightly stooping shoulders. The visor of his red cap hid most of his weather-beaten face, but Trixie could see enough of his features to be positive that he was a stranger. The very costume he was wearing was proof enough of that. Most of Mr. Lytell’s customers were neighbors whom she had known ever since she was a little girl, and even at masquerades they never wore such quaint garments.
    “My grandfather,” she whispered to Honey, “wore a turtleneck sweater like that when he played football in high school. There’s a photo of him with his team in an old album at home. And he wore funny-looking knickers like those when he played golf. But they were white linen, not khaki wool.”
    The man, who was carrying a large cardboard carton under one arm, paid no attention to them as he entered the woods and disappeared from view almost immediately.
    “There must be a path there,” Honey said in a low voice. “But I never would have noticed it, would you?”
    Trixie investigated. “There is a path, but nobody except a mouse or a rabbit would call it one.” Consumed with curiosity, she raced across the road and into the overcrowded store. Mr. Lytell was adding coal to the fire in his potbellied stove, so Trixie had to shout to get his attention.
    “Who was that man who just left here?”
    Mr. Lytell straightened and turned to face her with a petulant frown. “Trixie Belden,” he snapped. “What do you mean by rushing in here and yelling at me as though I were stone-deaf? It’s high time you ceased being such a harum-scarum tomboy. I’ve a good mind to pick up the phone and call your mother. There is a real lady, and if you didn’t look so much like her, I’d never believe that you were her daughter.”
    Trixie suppressed a sigh. Mr. Lytell had said this kind of thing about her so many times before that it was boring to listen. She knew perfectly well that he did not approve of her, so she began to worry for fear he would not accept the diamond ring. Too late, she realized that if Honey had offered it to him as security for Brian’s jalopy, there wouldn’t have been any trouble. Mr. Lytell did approve of Honey, and the fact that her parents were so rich would have kept him from becoming suspicious. But now all she could do was plunge into the situation and hope for the best.
    She took the tiny jewel case from the pocket of her jeans and put it on the counter. “Sorry I was so noisy, Mr. Lytell,” she said contritely. “But I was curious because I never saw that man before. Anyway, this is why I came to see you.” With a flick of her fingernail, she snapped open the gold clasp of the case. Even in that musty, dusty store, the facets of the diamond glittered.
    The storekeeper uttered a sound that made Trixie think of a billy goat’s bleat. As a matter of fact, the storekeeper, with his wispy moustache, did look rather like a goat. She suddenly felt as though she were taking part in a scene from Through the Looking Glass. The storekeeper in that scene had been a sheep, but she had been wearing glasses, and the sheep’s store was as cluttered as this one. For a moment, while she tried to keep from laughing, Trixie was sure that Mr. Lytell would grab a pair of needles and begin to knit.
    Instead, he grabbed the ring from the jewel case and brought it over to the strong light above the desk in the back of the store. Trixie followed him, not daring to say a word. After what seemed like hours, he turned and said in an awed tone of voice, “This diamond ring is worth about two hundred dollars. Where did you get it , Trixie Belden ?”
    “Jim Frayne gave it to me ages ago,” Trixie said. “It was his great-aunt’s, and because I found it before the old Mansion burned to the ground, Jim felt that it belonged to me.” In a rush of words she went on: “You remember, Mr. Lytell,