“Well, there’s one sight I don’t ever want to see again.” Honey shuddered. “And that’s that horrible pickpocket.”
“To make the best of the time we have left,” Miss Trask suggested, “you might like to take the cruise down the Thames to Greenwich. You’ll see the Houses of Parliament, the Tower and the Tower Bridge, and a great deal more of London’s waterfront. Then there’s the Maritime Museum at Greenwich, with models of sloops and steamers, old maps, charts, and early instruments of navigation. You can go aboard an old China tea clipper, the Cutty Sark, and see a fascinating collection of carved figureheads taken from wrecked ships.”
“Greenwich.” Jim’s green eyes sparkled. “Is that where they have the prime meridian? You know— what all the world’s time zones are measured by?”
“Right,” Mart said enthusiastically. “Let’s go!”
“But Trixie and I wanted to do a little shopping in London,” Honey said. “We have to get some souvenirs for the folks back home, and I’m going to have to get another handbag. Could we do that, too?”
“Shopping?” the boys asked, incredulous.
“Nobody asked you to come along,” Trixie assured them.
“There wouldn’t be time for both,” Miss Trask said, “and I hate to have you split up.”
“And what if you get lost again?” Jim looked a bit worried.
“Oh, I know how to get around London now,” Trixie said confidently. “And we won’t have anything pick-able in our pockets, since we’re leaving Honey’s necklace here in the hotel safe.”
“We don’t even have very much money,” Honey added.
“Expenses” for the Belden-Wheeler Detective Agency didn’t include souvenirs. The Wheelers could have given Honey all the spending money she asked for, of course, but she didn’t want any more than Trixie had—which, until McDuff returned her five pounds, was just about zilch.
“We’ll be careful,” Trixie promised.
“Very well,” their chaperon decided.
“You’re such a jolly good sport!” said Honey.
“I try,” Miss Trask chuckled. “You needn’t be back on the dot of twelve, by the way. When Mr. McDuff gets here with the car, we’ll have to pack it. Then I think we should all have lunch before we leave. You go ahead and eat wherever you like, and then be back here before two. Mr. McDuff says it isn’t far to Stratford—no more than a two-hour drive.”
Hmm, thought Trixie as the two girls went outside to wait for a double-decker, if McDuff does show up, things are certainly working out conveniently for him. He gets to have lunch with Miss Trask, just the two of them....
Usually, Trixie talked over her suspicions with Honey, but by then it was clear that Honey didn’t want to hear them. The morning paper had had another headline on tourist rackets, but Trixie knew enough not to bring that up again.
I'm not going to say any more about it till two o'clock, Trixie resolved. If he hasn't shown up by then, they'll have to believe me.
“I hear the shops in London are really super,” Honey said, “but I kind of wish we could have gone on the cruise, too.”
“We can trade notes with the boys later,” Trixie said.
The girls got off the bus in Mayfair, the fashionable shopping district Miss Trask had recommended. After they picked out a red leather handbag for Honey, they went window-shopping. Here and there,
between the large department stores, were small, hole-in-the-wall stationery stores, which sold magazines, sweets, and souvenirs. Honey lent Trixie some money, and Trixie treated herself to a bag of sweets.
“This has got to be the best candy in the world,” she sighed, selecting several luscious chocolate bars with gooey raspberry or orange fillings, some pieces of real English toffee in all different flavors, and a few bright-colored gumdrops that tasted much better than American gumdrops.
“It probably has the most calories, too,” said Honey, not that she ever had to worry about her weight.
Trixie didn’t worry either, even though people were always calling her things like “sturdy.” Then she remembered that Mart sometimes called her worse things than that, and she turned away from the candy section.
“Ohhh, look!” Trixie cried. “I just have to get that for Bobby.”
On a crowded shelf stood a miniature London policeman, leading a police dog on a red leash. About three inches high, he wore a dark blue uniform and a round black felt hat with a strap under his chin.
“Oh, Trix, he’s darling,” Honey agreed. “Look, he even has a tiny necktie.”
“Bobby will flip,” Trixie said. “I can’t wait to tell him that English cops are called bobbies.”
“Now we have to find something for Di and Brian and Dan,” Honey reminded her.
Before they found just what they wanted, Trixie noticed that it was past twelve. “Do you think we could eat at Tiddy Dol’s?” she begged.
“What’s this thing you have about Tiddy Dol’s?” Honey asked.
“I don’t know,” Trixie said. “I just like the name!”
It turned out that Tiddy Dol had been an eighteenth-century gingerbread peddler, and that the specialty of Tiddy Dol’s Eating House was still gingerbread. The girls ate it warm, with butter, honey, and cream, and they had so many helpings that they had to rush in order to get back to the hotel in time.
“We can go shopping again in Stratford,’ Trixie said as they scurried through the front door of the hotel, right on the dot of two o’clock.
Jim and Mart arrived just as they did, out of breath from running.
“Where’s Miss Trask?” Honey asked. There was no sign of either her or McDuff.
“Jeepers, where could she be?” Trixie asked anxiously. “She told us to be here for sure—and now she's gone.”
“Let’s ask someone around the hotel,” Jim suggested, leading the way out a side door.
Mrs. Johnson, the proprietor of the little hotel, was in the garden, picking roses. “You’ve no call to worry,” she reassured the Bob-Whites. “The gentleman as was here yesterday came by in a car and
picked her up. That was about noon, I should say.”
“She went off without us?” Honey’s big hazel eyes were puzzled. “Didn’t she leave any message?”
“No, luv, not with me she didn’t.”
“O Miss Trask, Miss Trask, wherefore art thou, Miss Trask,” Mart said lightly, but he, too, looked concerned.
“I told you he was a crook,” Trixie wailed. “He’s probably kidnapped her and is holding her for a huge ransom.”
Jim and Mart burst out laughing. “Oh, come on, Trix,” Jim said. “You’ve really gone out on a limb this time.”
“They probably went somewhere for lunch,” Honey said doubtfully, “and just got caught in a traffic jam or something.”
“But it’s almost three o’clock,” Trixie said indignantly, after they had waited a while longer. “I’m going to call Scotland Yard.”
Before Trixie could move from where she was sitting on the hotel steps, a dark red sedan drew up under the portico of the Garden Hotel, and McDuff got out of the driver’s seat on the right side of the car. Then he walked around to open the door for Miss Trask, who, even Trixie had to admit, certainly didn’t look as if she’d been kidnapped.
“I’m so sorry,” Miss Trask said. “We didn’t notice the time.” Her short gray hair was blown every which way, and her blue eyes were shining. Her brown tweed suit was adorned with a yellow chiffon scarf that Trixie had never seen before.
The Bob-Whites couldn’t believe their ears. Miss Trask, the efficient manager of the Wheeler estate— forgetting the time?
McDuff was peeling a five-pound note from a fat roll of bills. “Here ye are, lass,” he told Trixie. “I certainly appreciated the loan.”
Trixie turned bright red. Gleeps, she gulped silently. I really goofed this time. How wrong could she get? He wasn’t a crook, or a con man, or a kidnapper, or even a fortune hunter, since Miss Trask didn’t have a fortune. He mus
t be what he appeared to be—their friend. I’ll just have to make it up to him, she resolved. From now on, I'm going to be as nice as pie.
... Even if I don't like him all that much, she couldn’t help adding to herself.
Aloud she mumbled, “You’re quite welcome.”
The car McDuff had picked out for them was a four-door with just enough room for the six of them. “I wasn’t sure whether ye wanted an estate or a saloon,” he said.
“What do you mean, saloon?” Mart asked. They were all standing around the car, admiring it. Its bright chrome sparkled in the sunlight.
Miss Trask laughed. “Mr. McDuff says that an estate is what a station wagon is called here,” she explained. “And a saloon is a sedan.”
“A saloon?” giggled Honey. “I thought a saloon was where the cowboys are always going in Western movies.”
“Got it!” Mart snapped his fingers and ran his hand fondly over the gleaming, dark red fender. “Remember when we went to Vermont, and Di and I named our beige Volkswagen the Tan Van? Well— get this—I hereby christen this car the Maroon Saloon!”
“Oh, Mart, that’s neat!” squealed Honey.
“If Di were here,” Trixie teased, “she’d think Mart’s wit was second only to Shakespeare’s.”
Mart pointed a finger and ordered, “ ‘Get thee to a nunnery!’ ”
Instead of obeying, Trixie made a face at him and got into the car.
In a short while, the Maroon Saloon was heading north, Gordie McDuff at the wheel and Miss Trask sitting beside him. The four Bob-Whites were a little cramped in the backseat, but they didn’t mind. It was a sunny day, and the countryside was greener than the emeralds in Honey’s necklace. Soft white clouds sailed across an azure sky.
When McDuff’s deep voice broke into a Scottish song, they all joined in:
“Speed, bonny boat, like a bird on the wing,
‘Onward,’ the sailors cry.
‘Carry the lad that was born to be king,
Over the sea to Skye.’
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclouds rend the air.
Baffled our foes stand by the shore,
Follow they will not dare.”
“That song’s about Bonnie Prince Charlie, right?” Mart asked.
“Now, there’s a brainy laddie,” said McDuff. “Aye, the Young Pretender he was called by those who didn’t agree that he was the rightful king. Those people won out, too, and defeated Charles in battle at Culloden Moor.”
“Did Prince Charlie escape?” Honey asked.
“He probably got his head chopped off,” Trixie guessed, “like Mary Queen of Scots.”
“No, no, he escaped to France,” McDuff said.
Kindhearted Honey breathed a sigh of relief.
“Were you born in Scotland, Mr. McDuff?” Trixie asked politely.
“Aye, little girl, that I was.In Glasgow.” McDuff’s big hands swung the car easily around one of the grassy circles that punctuated the straight and narrow motorway.
“When did you move to Canada?” Trixie persisted.
“Really, Trixie,” Miss Trask said, “perhaps Mr. McDuff doesn’t want to tell us his life story.”
“I was only trying to be friendly,” Trixie mumbled.
“Ask away,” laughed their guide. “I don’t mind. In truth, I was but a wee lad when my father emigrated to the land of promise.”
Jim smiled down at Trixie, who was squeezed in between him and Honey. “I believe you said you’d been a guide in London,” he said to the Scotsman. “Then you’ve been here before?”
“Many times,” McDuff said. “But the occasion of my present journey is a sad one, ye might say. Or ye might not, depending upon how ye look at it. This was to have been my honeymoon.”
Trixie sucked in her breath. “What—what happened to your, uh, fiancée?”
McDuff threw back his grizzled black head and roared. “If it’s kicking the bucket ye’re worried about, lassie, don’t bother. She’s still in the land of the living. To tell ye the truth, I was jilted.”
There was a chorus of protests. “I’m terribly sorry,” said Honey.
“Dinna waste your sympathy,” McDuff said. “Two can’t travel for the price of one, that’s what I say. And I’ve surely fallen into good company on my road to Scotland. ‘Oh, you’ll take the high road, and I’ll take the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland afore ye,’ ” he sang, and they all joined in. “ ‘But I and my true love will never meet again, on the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Lomond.’ ”
He sure doesn’t act like his heart is broken, thought Trixie.
Aloud she inquired, “Then you’re on your way to Scotland now?”
“Aye, to visit my uncle. But there’s no great rush,” McDuff assured them. “I’ll be glad to be your guide for a few days.”
Mart, unusually quiet so far, was sitting by the window, looking out at the countryside. Rolling green hills, wooded estates, and stone-walled villages flashed by. Then pastures and ancient brick farmhouses became more frequent.
“Jeepers,” Mart said. “These farmers use trees for windbreaks, and piles of stones or hedges instead of fences. Those must be what they call hedgerows— how about that? And look at all the sheep!”
“Mart plans to major in agriculture when he goes to college,” Trixie explained to McDuff, still trying her best to be friendly. “Back home, we live on a farm, but it’s just a small one, and my dad works in a bank, so we don’t raise crops exactly—except raspberries and crab apples, of course—but anyway, Mart is planning to teach at Jim’s school for underprivileged boys, and—”
“Whoa!” Mart pleaded. “Pipe down, will you? I’d like to find out something about English farming.”
“Happy to oblige,” said McDuff. “These are the Cotswold Hills—hilly, upland territory and sheep country. The pastures are laid out in neat rectangles and bounded—as ye noticed, lad—by hedges and rows of trees.”
Mart’s blue eyes were filled with admiration at the notion of fences that one planted.
“We learned a whole lot about sheep on my Uncle Andrew’s farm in Iowa,” Trixie told McDuff.
McDuff didn’t seem to hear her. “I love the English countryside,” he was telling Miss Trask, “even better than London.”
“It’s so peaceful,” Honey agreed happily. “No pickpockets!”
Trixie was about ready to give up on conversation altogether, when she looked out the window and noticed a road sign. “Stow-on-the-Wold,” she laughed. “What’s that?”
“I believe it’s one of England’s little hamlets,” Miss Trask said.
“Hamlet? I thought England had only one—the play by Shakespeare,” Trixie said.
“The word also means a village,” said Miss Trask without turning around.
Trixie slouched down in the seat. Either I’ve turned totally paranoid, she thought, or there is a let’s-see-how-dumb-we-can-make-Trixie-look plot afoot. She saw McDuff glance over to smile at Miss Trask, and without thinking, she muttered out loud, “He could at least keep his eyes on the road.”
Mart overheard her and raised an eyebrow. “Lord, what fools these detectives be,” he misquoted pointedly.
“What’s that you said?” Miss Trask turned around. “Quoting Shakespeare again? How appropriate—Mr. McDuff says we’re coming into Shakespeare country.” She smiled at Mart.
“Just a little paraphrasing from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ” said Mart nonchalantly.
A midsummer nightmare is more like it, Trixie thought gloomily.
The Tweedies • 8
TRIXIE’S HIGH SPIRITS began returning, bit by bit, as the Maroon Saloon entered Stratford.
“Gleeps!” she whispered. “Isn’t this marvelous?” They were driving slowly across an old stone bridge. Below them, white swans glided gracefully across the River Avon. People were splashing around the river in small boats or picnicking on its grassy banks. Not far upstream, a modern red-brick building dominated t
he landscape.
“Yon’s the Royal Shakespeare Theatre,” said McDuff. He was quick to point out several other places of interest on their way to the Shakespeare Hotel, the famous sixteenth-century building where
Honey’s parents had arranged for them to stay. They were all excited by the thought of actually sleeping in such an old building.
By mutual agreement, the travelers, after entering the handsome black-and-white, half-timbered construction, headed first for the hotel dining room. They ordered their dinner and were sitting by the bay window, waiting for it to arrive, when Trixie and Honey excused themselves to go wash up.
“Let’s go upstairs and look around,” urged Trixie once they were heading back to the dining room. “It would be such fun!”
“Shouldn’t we get back to the table?” Honey asked. “What if our food arrives—”
“I just want to take a peek at the bedrooms,” said Trixie, grabbing Honey’s hand. “Mart told me they were named after Shakespeare’s plays. You know— like the dining room is named As You Like It. ”
Honey reluctantly agreed, and the two girls ran upstairs to explore the narrow, hushed, dimly lighted corridors.
“Look, here’s Much Ado About Nothing,” said Trixie with a noisy giggle. “Sounds just like me!”
“Ssshh, people in these rooms might be resting,” Honey said. “Anyway, there’s the room I want—A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ll bet it’s darling inside.”
Something about the combination of play titles and hotel rooms was enormously appealing to Trixie’s funny bone. “Oh, Honey,” she cried, “after all the rotten things I’ve been thinking, I need to have a good laugh!”
“Okay, okay, but just do it more quietly,” pleaded Honey. “Oh, how sweet! Here’s a room called Romeo and Juliet.”
“You can have that one! I think these two over here are a scream—The Tempest and All's Well That Ends Well. Wait till I tell Mart!” Trixie fell to chuckling again, and by the time she reached The Taming of the Shrew and Love’s Labour's Lost, she was almost doubled over with laughter. “Oh, I can’t stand it,” she shrieked. “Imagine a bedroom called Comedy of Errors!”
The Mystery of the Queen's Necklace Page 6