The Gatehouse Mystery

by Julie Campbell

  Mart appealed to Miss Trask. “How do you like that? She bawls me out for using big words, then suggests that I use one with four syllables instead of two?”

  Miss Trask chuckled. “Maybe Trixie thinks you should use more familiar words, Mart.”

  “Nothing could be more familiar to her,” Mart said with a grin, “than the word stable. Honey just had to drag her out of one so we could eat.”

  “Equestrienne,” Trixie said suddenly. “Why couldn’t you have simply said that I’m a famous horseback rider?”

  “Not that you are,” Mart returned. “And if I had known that you were familiar with the word, I would never have applied it to you.”

  “I give up,” Trixie groaned. “Let’s eat.”

  After dinner, they cleared the table, and Brian and Mart insisted upon helping the maids with the dishes.

  “We’re experts,” Mart said, tying a ruffled apron on over his jeans. “Human dishwashing machines. That’s the kind of camp we went to.”

  Brian vigorously scrubbed the huge copper frying pan. “I can make people stop using that old saying about the pot calling the kettle black,” he said. “If I could be everywhere at once, there would be no such thing as a black kettle.”

  “Go along with you,” plump Helen said, giggling. “Marjorie and I can do better without you big boys crowding around the sinks.”

  “That we can,” Marjorie agreed, snatching her apron off Mart. “But we thank you kindly just the same.”

  Mart bowed. “Say no more. We can take a hint. We know when we’re not wanted.” He and Brian stalked out the back door, pretending to be very hurt.

  “Oh, dear,” Marjorie said contritely to the girls. “Tell them we’re sorry, won’t you? We thought it was real nice of them to offer to help.”

  “Pay them no mind,” Trixie said airily. “They had junior counselor jobs this summer, and they haven’t recovered yet.”

  She and Honey followed the boys who were waiting for them outside the kitchen door. In a few minutes, Jim joined them. “I’m so full of food I can hardly walk, let alone ride horseback,” he said as they strolled toward the stable.

  “Me, too,” the others chorused.

  “I really ought to go home and get that diamond,” Trixie said, and explained to Jim and Brian. “Do you think it’s safe in my sewing basket?” she finished.

  “Gosh, I don’t know,” Brian replied worriedly. “Did you say, Mart, that the pincushion showed signs of having been manhandled by Bobby?”

  Mart nodded. “Anything stuffed, whether it be in the form of fruit or wild beast, sooner or later loses its stuffing if Bobby has anything to do with it. The strawberry pincushion bore his mark—a hole in the head.”

  “Not that strawberries have heads,” Trixie said. “But we get the idea, professor. What are you leading up to, Brian?”

  “Just this,” he said. “If the pincushion bears Bobby’s mark, it may mean that he knows it belongs to you. He may well have gouged a hole in it, sometime or other, to pay you back for something you did to him.”

  “Gleeps,” Mart howled. “I should have thought of that. I know that age group only too well. They’re uncivilized little savages. Especially when seeking revenge upon older persons; and more especially, poor, hardworking, well-meaning junior counselors. Take my knapsack, for instance—”

  “Never mind, never mind,” Trixie interrupted. “Just run along and put the diamond in some other, safer, place. We’ll wait right here for you. In fact, I think I’ll curl up on the saddle blankets and take a nap while you’re gone.”

  “Is that so?” Mart grabbed one of her short, sandy curls and gave it a gentle yank. “If you’re so smart, you can go and retrieve the diamond yourself.”

  “Better not stand around arguing about it,” Brian advised them. “Bobby’s favorite time for committing vandalism, I seem to remember, is after he’s supposed to be tucked safely in bed.” He pointed to the clock on the tack room wall. “It’s almost eight.”

  “You’re so right,” Trixie moaned. “We may already be too late. Come on, Mart, please come with me. I couldn’t stand it alone if that diamond has disappeared again.”

  Chapter 12

  Mr. Lytell’s Observations

  Mart and Trixie raced into their house and up the stairs to the attic. Mrs. Belden called to them from the hall below before they had a chance to pick their way across the boxes and trunks to the spot where they hoped the sewing basket would be.

  “Is that you, Trixie?” she asked. “Did you come back for something?”

  “And how!” Mart muttered under his breath. “It’s Mart and Trixie, Moms,” he called from the top step.

  “All right,” she said. “Having a good time?”

  “Wonderful,” Trixie replied. “You were an angel to give me a vacation, Moms.”

  “You deserved it,” Mrs. Belden said.

  They heard her go down the stairs to the ground floor, and then they hurried over to a corner under the eaves.

  “Eureka!” Mart chortled. “It’s here.”

  “The pincushion,” Trixie said weakly. “You look, Mart.”

  “It’s here, too,” he said. “And so is the diamond. Bobby should sue us for libel.”

  Trixie cuddled the precious stone in her hand for a minute, then she crammed it back inside the strawberry pincushion. “Now what, Mart?”

  “If you could only sew,” he said, “you could sew the thing right inside the pincushion and substitute it for the one Moms has just like it in her sewing basket. It would be perfectly safe there, even from Bobby. He never touches her things.”

  “I can’t sew well enough to make this strawberry look just like the one Moms has,” Trixie admitted. “But Honey could. She’s expert with any kind of needle, and, after all, there’s only just a rip in the seam.” She scrabbled through the basket and finally found some red thread which exactly matched the strawberry.

  “You’ll need a needle, too,” Mart reminded her, “or do you know that much about mending?”

  Trixie giggled. “Don’t needle me. Let’s go. And let’s appoint Brian a committee of one to do the substituting. Moms and Dad would never suspect him of doing anything peculiar. He’s the fair-haired boy around here, even if he is a brunet.”

  “Wait a sec,” Mart cautioned her. “You can’t go barging downstairs with anything as suspicious as sewing equipment in your hand. Moms would faint with surprise. Besides, we ought to be carrying something which would explain why we came back.”

  Trixie sighed and crammed the pincushion, thread, and a package of needles into the pocket of her jeans. “What might we need that Moms didn’t pack?” She stared around the cluttered floor.

  “Certainly not Bobby’s old high chair or play pen,” Mart said in a discouraged tone of voice, “or his crib. Say, why don’t they keep kids that age in cribs anyway? Cribs with ceiling-high iron bars?”

  “Write a letter to your congressman about it,” Trixie said with a giggle. “I’ve got it,” she cried suddenly. “Those old roller skates. Jim has been promising to make Bobby a scooter out of an orange crate for ages. We’ll each carry a pair. Come on.”

  Trixie hurried down the steep stairs so fast that she tripped on the bottom step and fell headlong into the hall. As she scrambled up, Bobby appeared at his bedroom door.

  “Hey!” he greeted them. “Whatcha gonna do with those roller skates?”

  “A scooter for you,” Trixie said sweetly. “Jim’s going to make you one. Now go to bed, Bobby.”

  Suddenly he burst into tears. “Oh, oh, and I was such a bad boy. Trixie,” he wailed, “I choppeded Dinah’s head off.”

  Trixie knelt and pulled him into her arms. “It doesn’t matter, Bobby, darling,” she crooned. “Dinah is just an old rag doll. I should have given her to you long ago. Anyway, I was a bad girl to mess up your toy box.”

  “She certainly was,” Mart said soothingly. “And I’m a bad boy not to have made you a scooter before I went to camp.” He
took Bobby back to bed and together they tucked him in.

  All smiles now, he kissed them good night and they hurried away. Mr. Belden stopped them in the downstairs hall, eyeing the roller skates. “So Bobby’s going to have a scooter at last?”

  “That’s right, Dad,” Mart said. “I’m really terrible. Jim is a better big brother to Bobby than Brian and I are.”

  “I wouldn’t say that,” his father said, chuckling. “In fact, when you’re home, you and Brian spoil the child to death.”

  “He can’t accuse me of that,” Trixie said, later, when she and Mart were climbing the hill. “I’m the terrible one. I’m forever losing my temper when I have to take care of Bobby, and he really is so cute.”

  “Oh, well,” Mart said cheerfully, “you’ll improve with age. In fact, according to Moms and Dad, you’ve taken great strides this summer. I have a feeling that Honey has a good influence on you. She’s really super.”

  “I love her,” Trixie cried. “She’s got just about everything, and I don’t mean money.”

  “Money,” Mart said airily. “Oh, that! Say, Jim’s great, too. Brian thinks the world of him already. He hopes they’ll be in the same class at High.”

  “I hope so, too,” Trixie said and led the way into the tack room. She gave Honey the thread, needles, and pincushion while Mart explained.

  “You’re to make the switch, Brian, old boy, old boy,” Mart finished. “Trixie and I have had too many narrow escapes already.” He wiped his moist brow on the sleeve of his shirt. “Whew! Suppose Dad had caught Trixie with that mending gear in her hand! Bro-ther, would he ever have been suspicious.”

  Honey quickly and deftly repaired the ripped seam and handed the pincushion to Brian. “It all comes of being the eldest son,” she said, smiling. “Are you going to slip this into your mother’s sewing basket now, or in the dead of the night?”

  Brian groaned. “In the dead of the night, I hope to be on hand to help catch our prowler.” He glared at Mart. “If you think Dad’s suspicions would have been aroused if he had caught Trixie with this feminine object, what’s he going to think if he catches me with it?”

  “If he does,” Mart said cheerfully, “just nibble on it. In Alaska, strawberries do grow to that size.”

  “That’s a big help,” Brian said sarcastically. “Why don’t you fly up to Juneau and get me a parka, so I can sneak into the house disguised as an Eskimo?”

  “The least we can do,” Honey said after Brian had left, “is to have his horse saddled and bridled when he gets back. I’ll do it.”

  “Who’s going to ride whom?” Mart said.

  “I dibs Susie,” Trixie said. “Okay, Honey?”

  Honey nodded. “Do you want to ride Strawberry, Mart? I like Lady, especially when I’m tired and sleepy, as I am now.” She turned to Jim. “Did Brian get on well with Starlight?”

  “They’re crazy about each other,” Jim said. “Sure you don’t want to ride Jupe, Mart?”

  “Not me,” Mart said. “I’m not good enough. He might black my eye.”

  “That whole yarn is fishy,” Jim said as they saddled and bridled the horses. “I wonder why Dick didn’t come back this afternoon?”

  “If he doesn’t come back tonight,” Trixie said, “we won’t catch anything in our trap. I’ve a good mind to take some pills, so I’ll be sure to stay awake. Coffee wasn’t much help.”

  “Great,” Mart said. “Sweets for the sweet and dope for the dopes. Give me that saddle, Honey. I’ll get Starlight ready for Brian.”

  Brian himself appeared then. “Nothing to it,” he said happily. “Nothing to it. Moms and Dad were upstairs putting Bobby back on top of the bed from his nest under it.” He gave Honey his mother’s pincushion. “You’d better keep this. You’re the only one of us who seems to have a rightful claim to such objects.”

  “It is exactly like the other one,” Honey said, cramming it into the pocket of her jeans. “Have you ever thought of what might happen, Brian, when your mother tries to stick a needle into the one that’s half-filled with the diamond?”

  “That can’t happen,” Trixie said firmly. “It just can’t. Besides, Moms has one of her knitting fevers on now; and most of the day she’s canning tomatoes. I doubt if she’ll even look in her sewing basket until she’s finished Bobby’s sweater.”

  They mounted their horses and, with Jim and Honey leading the way, started along the trail that led through the woods. “I hope you’re right,” Mart said to Trixie. “Let’s pray that Bobby doesn’t yank all the straps off his sunsuits between now and Sunday.”

  “Do you think the mystery will be solved by then?” Trixie asked.

  “I think our prowler will come back,” he said, “if that’s what you mean.”

  “And,” Brian added, “if we haven’t solved the mystery by the time the house party ends, we’ll have to give the diamond to the police and confess our sins.”

  “I suppose so,” Trixie said mournfully. “I’d like to know where Dick is now.”

  The trail ended at a quiet country lane which paralleled Glen Road on the other side of the woods. The Beldens galloped up to join Jim and Honey who had reined in their horses.

  “When you have your driving lesson,” Honey was telling Jim, “this is where Dick will take you. There’s almost no traffic on it, and there’s just that one farmhouse over there at the dead end of the road.”

  “That’s right,” Brian agreed. “At school the instructors took us out here for steering practice as soon as we knew how to shift gears.” He turned to Jim. “Say, that’s an idea. If Dick doesn’t come back tonight, I can show you the gear-shifting part of the course. There’s nothing to it, really.”

  “Swell,” Jim said. “I do want to get the hang of it all as soon as possible.”

  “How did it happen you never were exposed to the art of driving before?” Mart asked. “When I was ten I started plaguing Dad with questions until I got the general idea, and so did Brian.”

  “My dad,” Jim said in a low voice, “my own dad, died when I was ten.”

  Honey laid her hand lightly on his tanned arm. “Jim had a very mean stepfather, Mart,” she said softly. “He wasn’t the kind who answers boys’ questions about gear-shifting.”

  Mart’s face reddened with embarrassment. “Golly, Jim, I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “That was a dumb question I asked you. But then, I’m dumb.”

  Jim turned around in the saddle to grin at him. “You’re anything but that, Mart, and there’s no reason for you to apologize. I’m too sensitive. Plenty of boys have had much worse breaks than I had, and very few of them could hope for the good luck of being adopted by such swell people as the Wheelers.”

  “Oh, Jim,” Honey cried gently. “We were the lucky ones. I was the most miserable person in the world until I met you and Trixie.”

  He tapped her lightly on the cheek. “Don’t correct your elders, little sister.”

  “Oh, woe,” Trixie interrupted. “Here comes that nosy Mr. Lytell. Let’s gallop off in all directions.”

  “What’s eating you, Trixie?” Brian demanded. “He’s a perfectly harmless character, and I’d like to say hello. You know, of course,” he said to Jim and Honey, “that yon man on the sway-backed gray mare owns the little Glen Road store?”

  “That we do,” Jim said emphatically. “In the days when I was a fugitive from my stepfather, he gave us some bad moments.”

  “Trixie’s right,” Honey added. “He’s a nosy old gossip, but we’ve got to be polite. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t get the Sunday papers; and Regan would quit if he couldn’t relax over the comics.” She raised her voice and said pleasantly, “Good evening, Mr. Lytell. How is Belle bearing up during this hot, sultry weather?”

  Mr. Lytell poked at his glasses with one hand and patted the mare’s gaunt shoulder with the other. “She can hardly stand it,” he told Honey. “But I always say, no matter how old a horse is, it should always have some exercise.” He nearsightedly peered at
Brian and Mart. “Why, hello, boys. Back from camp, eh?”

  “That’s right,” Brian said. “Did you have a nice summer, sir?”

  Belle stumbled to a stop on the other side of the country road, and hung her head dejectedly. “Well, yes and no,” Mr. Lytell answered Brian. “It’s been so hot Belle and I only ride early in the morning or late in the evening.” He gave Honey and Jim a sharp glance. “You kids been camping out in that old caretaker’s cottage on the edge of your property?”

  “Why, no,” Honey said. “What made you think so?”

  “Saw lights flickering in there Tuesday night,” he said. “Any of you kids drive cars?”

  “I can drive,” Brian said, “but I’m not old enough, yet, to get a license. Why?”

  “I was just wondering,” the old storekeeper said. “Saw a jalopy parked by the road near your cottage, Honey, that same night. And then, early Wednesday morning, I saw it drive away.”

  “That’s interesting,” Trixie put in. “When you saw it leave Wednesday morning, Mr. Lytell, were there two men in the car or one?”

  He stared at her suspiciously. “Who said there were any men in the car at all?”

  Trixie laughed airily. “I never heard of a car driving off by itself before, Mr. Lytell. And it’s obvious that someone who had engine trouble was forced to spend Tuesday night in the cottage.”

  “It isn’t obvious at all,” he said sourly. “A person with engine trouble—a decent person—would have gone up to the big house and asked permission to stay in the cottage until it was light enough to repair the engine.”

  “You forget, Mr. Lytell,” Brian said quietly, “from the road, no one would have the vaguest idea that the cottage belonged to the Wheeler estate. If you can see it at all, it looks as though it’s just an abandoned shack in the woods.”

  “I’m surprised you knew it was there,” Jim added.

  A pale flush spread up over Mr. Lytell’s prominent cheekbones. “I notice things,” he mumbled. “And I happened to notice that there was only one person in the car when it drove away early Wednesday morning. And, if you kids weren’t camping out in the cottage Tuesday night, that person must talk to himself.” He picked up the reins and nudged the old horse into a walk. “Belle and I heard voices when we rode by there just as it was getting really dark. Loud voices.”