“I still don’t understand,” Trixie said. “People don’t go around carrying diamonds that size in their pockets.”
“No,” Jim said, “but they wear them when they’re set in engagement rings. Maybe I’d better begin at the beginning.”
“Wait a minute,” Trixie interrupted. “Here comes a taxi. The others are back from the movies. Let’s raid the icebox while we catch them up on events. Then you can begin at the beginning, Jim.”
“This I must hear,” Regan said. “You can watch the wrestling matches almost any evening, but you don’t often get a chance to find out what you kids have been up to. Am I invited?”
“You certainly are,” Trixie said quickly. “No more secrets from you, Regan. Brother, as Mart would say, was I ever glad to see you standing in the door with that gun!”
Ten minutes later, they were all gathered around the long kitchen table. Regan had donated to the feast the big platter of sandwiches Celia and the cook had made earlier. Honey poured creamy milk into tall glasses as Trixie told Regan how she and Honey had found the diamond.
When she finished, Regan shook his head. “Say, Trixie,” he said, almost sternly, “you got off easy with just a bad fright. And what a lucky break for you that I didn’t go to the police station and prefer charges. If I had, the cops would have soon found out that your mother has the diamond but doesn’t know it. If I had any sense, I’d give you a good bawling out for keeping it from the police so long!”
“Don’t worry about that part of it,” Brian said. “We’re all in trouble. We can’t very well ask Dad to take the diamond to headquarters tomorrow without confessing our sins.”
“That’s true,” Regan said in a relieved tone of voice. “How do your parents stand you kids, anyway? What next?”
“I still don’t understand about the Dick the Dip part,” Honey complained. “Please begin at the beginning as you promised, Jim.”
Then Jim explained. “Dick and Louie,” he said, “are sort of super-pickpockets. They make a specialty of robbing big New York office buildings during the hot summer months. Firms are not only understaffed, then, with many employees away on vacation, but they’re careless. They leave the doors open to the main corridors and then go into adjoining offices, leaving the reception room empty. Women workers,” he went on, “are especially careless, according to Dick. Before he bopped me on the head, he boasted plenty.”
“Oh, I hate him,” Honey cried fiercely. “I hate him. I hope he has poison ivy all the time he’s in jail.”
Jim patted her small hand affectionately. “It didn’t hurt, Sis. It was just a stunning blow. You see, he was sitting in the back seat, and I was sitting in front behind the wheel. The idea was that I’d get self-confidence more quickly that way. So I didn’t even know what was happening until too late.”
Trixie gasped. “Why, that sounds as though he planned to knock you out even before you accused him of being a bow—bow—”
“Bogus is the word,” Mart said. “Which you would have known, if you had my superior education.”
Trixie ignored him. “Bogus chauffeur.”
Jim nodded. “He did plan to get rid of me as soon as Bobby told him that Honey and I had switched rooms. That’s why he offered to give me driving lessons just before he left to try and find Louie who had knocked him out the night before and departed with the rest of the loot.”
“So that’s why he was so touchy about his suitcase,” Regan said. “All the loot but the diamond was in it?”
“That’s right,” Jim said. “When Dick came back, after finding no trace of Louie, he decided to get the diamond tonight. He planned to get me out of his hair late in the afternoon and say that he left me in the village for a haircut, and so forth. Then, Celia told him that we were all going to the early show. When he heard that, he wasn’t interested in the driving lesson any more, but he had to keep his promise in order to avoid suspicion. I don’t think he would have bopped me on the head if I hadn’t lost my temper and accused him of forgery.”
“Red hair,” Trixie said with a grin, “will do it every time. Let’s get back to women office workers and how careless they are. Not,” she added in a loud aside to Honey, “that they’re any more careless than men.”
Jim shrugged. “According to Dick they are. He says they are forever leaving jewelry and their handbags in a nice spot where, during the hot weather, they can be snatched by anybody strolling along the corridors. Anyway,” he went on, “Dick and Louie made a nice haul during July and August. Most of the stuff they snatched wasn’t very valuable, but it all amounted to quite a nice haul just the same. The diamond was a windfall—and the pickpockets’ downfall.”
Honey nodded. “The lady it belonged to must have been furious. Mother would have hysterics if anything happened to the ring Daddy gave her.”
“The lady,” Jim said, “according to police, was wild. When I called headquarters from the Hoyts’, I told the desk sergeant everything I knew about Dick, and he was wild, too. They had been questioning Louie since yesterday morning as to the whereabouts of Dick and the diamond, but Louie, for some reason known only to the brotherhood of dips, wouldn’t tell them a thing.”
“How did the police get on the trail of Dick and Louie in the first place?” Mart asked. “Trying to catch a sneak thief in one of those big New York office buildings would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.” He bowed to Trixie. “Pardon the expression. I know how you hate the word needle.”
“I don’t know,” Jim said. “The sergeant didn’t go into details over the phone. But I imagine that when the lady who owns the diamond discovered it was missing, she raised a hue and a cry pretty quickly. An elevator boy may have been able to describe two suspicious-looking characters he had noticed loitering in the office building just before that.”
“Uh-huh,” Regan said. “New York police detectives are as familiar with the faces of all known pickpockets as they are with their own. And Dapper Dick, minus the black eye and poison ivy, would have been easy to spot.”
“Why, in spite of that,” Trixie added, “our very own Sleepyside policemen recognized him right off.” She turned to Jim. “I suppose, after they stole the ring, they took it out of the setting, planning to pawn the stone in some town way upstate?”
“I imagine so,” Jim said. “Or it may have been jarred from the setting during the fight in the cottage Tuesday night. You were right about that, Trixie; in fact, you were right about practically everything.”
“Sometimes, she is,” Mart said sadly. “But let’s not get in the habit of believing her. If we did, we’d be sure to end up on Mars.”
“Is that the next stop?” Regan asked, pretending to cringe. “Flying saucers will be the thing that starts her off, I’ll bet.” He poured himself another glass of iced tea. “The thing that makes me happiest is that Dick spent a lot of time with Bobby yesterday morning and never had any idea that the kid had the rock in his pocket all the time.”
“That makes me happy, too,” Trixie said. “But I’ll never be really happy, Regan, until you tell us your secret.”
“Well, now,” he said, crossing his long legs, “things have changed in the last few hours. I doubt if Miss Trask will buy Susie after all.”
“Miss Trask,” Trixie yelled. “Was she going to buy Susie? Why, she doesn’t know a thing about horses!”
Regan shrugged his broad shoulders. “She can learn, can’t she? If Jim, here, has picked up the gear-shift business so quickly, I guess I could teach Miss Trask a little something about how to make a horse stop and go.”
“Regan,” Honey cried. “You’re just teasing us. Does Miss Trask really want to have riding lessons?”
“That’s what she told me,” Regan retorted. “Said if I thought Susie was a good buy, she’d buy her on the installment plan. Said we really ought to have five horses. Said she was sure Trixie would keep Susie exercised when she was too busy to ride.” He glared across the table at Trixie. “That’s gratitude for
you. I suppose, now that you and Honey are loaded with money, you wouldn’t consider buying the little mare and giving her to Miss Trask. Miss Trask, the best friend you ever had!”
Trixie’s mouth fell open with surprise. “B-But, Re-Regan,” she stuttered. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t enough money to buy a horse. In fact, I owe Tom Delanoy fifty cents.”
“I paid him for you,” Brian said. “Did Honey tell you that he starts work out here as chauffeur after Labor Day?”
“I was there when she interviewed Tom,” Trixie replied. “You’ll like him a lot, Regan. And please, don’t be so mysterious. What made you say that Honey and I are loaded with money?”
Regan pushed back his chair and stood up. “You can’t sit there and tell me that there wasn’t a fat reward offered for the recovery of that diamond! Fat enough, anyway, to convince Jed Tomlin that Susie ought to stay on here.” He glared at Trixie again, his mouth twitching as he tried not to smile. “If you don’t buy that mare for Miss Trask, Trixie Belden, I’ll never let you put your foot in my stable again.” He strode out and the screen door slammed behind him.
Trixie reached weakly across the table to clutch Honey’s hands. “Oh, oh,” they cried together. “Oh, oh, OH!”
“Oh, brother,” Mart crowed. “Five horses for five mounted Bob-Whites of the Glen. And all of them always needing exercise!”
“It’s the answer to everything, all right,” Jim said.
“It certainly is,” Brian said with a grin. “Now that Trixie doesn’t have to save up for that colt any more, she can contribute every cent she earns toward the clubhouse.”
“I will,” Trixie said. “And I’ve got twenty-five dollars in the savings bank. We should be able to put on a new roof for that.”
Mart flung his arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “You’re a great girl, Trix,” he said softly. “Super! Even if you can’t thread a needle, I wouldn’t swap you for any other sister in the world.”
“And Mars,” Brian added. “The whole universe, in fact. There never was anyone like Trixie, and I guess there never will be!”
The Gatehouse Mystery Page 17