Chapter 1

A Discovery

“Oh, Moms,” Trixie wailed, twisting one of her short, blond curls around the pencil she had stuck behind her ear. “Do I have to write Brian and Mart? They’ll be home Saturday morning, and then I can tell them everything.”

Mrs. Belden looked up from the sweater she was knitting for Bobby, Trixie’s younger brother. “That’s the point,” she said with a smile. “Your older brothers have been at camp all summer, and you’ve never sent them anything but a few scribbled post cards.”

“There just wasn’t time,” Trixie said, staring down at the sheet of paper on which she had hastily scrawled:

Crabapple Farm

Sleepyside-on-Hudson, New York

Tuesday evening, August 22nd

“There just wasn’t time,” she repeated. “What with our going off in a trailer to find Jim; and, before that, the fire at the Frayne mansion, and before that, meeting Honey Wheeler, and--”

Mr. Belden, who worked in the Sleepyside First National Bank, had been trying to add a long column of figures. He interrupted Trixie, now, with a little frown. “Stop talking about it, Trixie. Write it. Your brothers will want to know all the news be-fore they get home. Why, they don’t even know that Honey’s parents bought the big estate up on the west hill last month.” He grinned. “You don’t have to go into details. Just prepare them for the pleasant surprise of Jim and Honey.”

With a stifled moan, Trixie licked the point of her pencil, and began to write.

Dear Junior Counselors:

I hope you saved every cent you earned at camp the way I did working at home this summer, because Dad says I can buy a colt from Mr. Tomlin next spring, and, if you help pay for his feed--the colt’s, I mean--I’ll let you ride him, sometimes.

I learned to ride this summer, because some rich people from New York bought the Manor House, and they have three horses and a simply darling daughter named Honey, who is my best friend. Dad talked to the principal and it’s all set--she’ll be in my class in junior high when school starts next month. Oh, woe! Only two more weeks before the grind begins!

Anyway, Honey and the Wheelers’ stable hand, Regan, who is super, taught me to ride. Honey was an only child, a poor little rich girl--I really mean it--until we found Jim. He’s old Mr. Frayne’s grandnephew and inherited half a million dollars from him. I know Moms and Dad wrote you that he died just before the old man-sion burned to the ground. Well, Jim ran away, then, because he has a mean old stepfather who wanted to get control of Jim’s inheritance. Honey and I went off searching for him last month in the Wheelers’ gorgeous trailer with Honey’s gov-erness, Miss Trask, who is a perfectly marvelous person, as nice as Regan, in spite of being a governess. And after we found Jim, Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler adopted him, so now Honey has a brother.

He’s just about the most wonderful boy in the world--almost a year younger than you, Brian--he had his fifteenth birthday in July--but he’ll be in your grade in high school, because he did two years in one and won a scholarship to college, too. But he isn’t a bookworm at all. He’s simply super at all sports and woodcraft. Even Re-gan says that he handles Jupiter, Mr. Wheeler’s enormous black gelding, better than anybody, and Mr. Wheeler is going to buy another horse for himself and give Jupe to Jim. He’s already bought him a gun and a springer spaniel puppy, Patch; so won’t you all have fun when you go hunting in the fall? Honey and I are going to make you teach us how to shoot.

Besides Jupe, the Wheelers have a strawberry roan who belongs to Honey, and a darling dapple-gray mare, named Lady, who belongs to Mrs. Wheeler, but she lets me ride Lady a lot. Mrs. Wheeler isn’t very strong. She’s slim like Honey, with the same huge hazel eyes and honey-colored hair. Mr. Wheeler looks enough like Jim to be his real father. They both have red hair and freckles and are tall and strong. Like Regan, they have quick tempers, but never stay mad long. Regan is only twen-ty-two and loves horses and hates cars, so Miss Trask does most of the chauffeur-ing. She is very brisk and sort of runs the whole estate, because, of course, Honey doesn’t really need a governess any more than I do. And Mrs. Wheeler can’t go out in the hot sun and see to it that the gardener keeps the grounds looking beautiful, or waste her energy planning menus with the cook, and things like that. The Man-or House is run like a small hotel, with more help than I think is really necessary, but they all love Miss Trask. She hires them and fires them!

Trixie stopped writing. She could think of a lot more to say, but her cramped fin-gers wouldn’t let her say it. She wanted to tell the boys about the exciting adven-tures she and Honey had when they solved the secret of the mansion and the mys-tery of the red trailer.

“I’ll give them the details over the weekend,” she decided sleepily as she handed the letter to her mother.

“That’s fine, Trixie,” Mrs. Belden said. “I’ll enclose your letter with mine. Now run along to bed, dear. And peek in on Bobby, will you? Make sure he’s on the bed, not under it.”

Trixie grinned. Her brother, on hot nights, preferred to sleep on the bare floor. And, ostrichlike, he kept thinking that since he couldn’t see anyone when he crawled under the bed, nobody could see him. “I’ll haul him out,” she told her mother and went upstairs.

The next morning, Trixie did her chores as fast as she could. Her father paid her five dollars a week for helping her mother with the housework and the garden; and, when Mrs. Belden was busy, Trixie had to keep an eye on mischievous Bobby. At this time of the year, Mrs. Belden was very busy canning the fast-ripening to-matoes. It was one of Trixie’s chores to gather the ripe ones each morning.

When Trixie brought in the last basketful her mother said, “Thanks, dear. Now run along and have fun with Honey. I’m sorry you’ll have to take Bobby with you, but I can’t keep an eye on him and the pressure cooker at the same time.”

“I don’t know which is more dangerous,” Trixie said, laughing.

“I’m not going,” Bobby announced when she joined him on the terrace. “I’d rather stay home and get wetted under the shower Jim made for me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Trixie said impatiently. “We’re going to explore the old cottage down by the road.”

“Whoopee!” Bobby yelled, hitching up the strap of his sunsuit. “ ’Sploring, hey? What old cottage, Trixie?”

“I don’t think you’ve ever seen it,” Trixie said as they climbed the path that led up the hill to the Manor House. “I’ve only had a glimpse of it myself.”

“You haven’t got a blimpse,” Bobby jeered. “A blimpse is a big, big balloon.”

Trixie sighed. Honey appeared, then, at the top of the path that sloped down to wind around the willow-bordered lake. “I thought you’d never come,” she cried. “Jim and Daddy went off to look at that chestnut gelding Mr. Tomlin has for sale, and Mother and Miss Trask went to New York to buy me some school clothes. I flatly refused to go with them. They don’t need me. They know my size and exactly what I want.”

“What do you want?” Trixie teased. “Prissy little blue velvet dresses with lace col-lars?” When the girls had first met early in the summer, Honey had, to Trixie’s dis-gust, been wearing a dainty frock, but now they dressed alike. Except when it was very hot, they wore boyish sport shirts, patched blue jeans, and scuffed moccasins.

That Wednesday morning it was very warm and muggy, as it often is during the late summer in the Hudson River Valley. The girls were wearing shorts and halters, so that they could take a dip in the lake whenever they wanted to, without bother-ing to change into bathing suits. After swimming, they dried off in the sun.

Honey was proud of the fact that her blue denim shorts were almost as faded as those Trixie was wearing.

“Velvet and lace,” she said with a sniff. “Oh, Trixie, you don’t know how wonderful it is not to be thinking about boarding-school uniforms at this time of the year. I still can’t believe that I’m going to the Sleepyside Junior-Senior High with you and your brothers!”

“And Jim, too,” Trixie said as Patch, the new black and white puppy, came bound-ing down from the stable to fling himself ecstatically into her arms. “I was afraid that after Jim inherited half a million dollars he might want to go to some swanky prep school. Down, Patch!”

The excited puppy immediately transferred his affections to Bobby, and the two rolled down the grassy slope together. Then Reddy, the Beldens’ beautiful, but completely untrained, Irish setter, barked from the woods behind the stable. Patch raced off to join him.

“When Jim starts to train Patch,” Trixie said, “we’ll have to lock up Reddy. He’s so spoiled he doesn’t know the meaning of the word point.”

“Point,” Bobby repeated. “Point to the cottage, Trixie.”

Trixie dutifully obeyed. “There it is,” she said, “way down by Glen Road where the lawn ends and the woods begin.”

The little cottage, which had been the gatehouse of the manor in the days of car-riages and sleighs, was so covered with wisteria vines they could hardly see it. But Bobby’s sharp blue eyes caught a glimpse of the door, and before Trixie could stop him, he raced down to yank it open.

“Wait, Bobby,” she yelled, “don’t go in until we--”

But he had already darted over the threshold. And then he screamed. Trixie, her heart in her mouth, dashed across the remaining stretch of lawn. What could have happened? What on earth could have been inside the old abandoned cottage to make Bobby scream?

Then she saw to her relief that he had merely tripped on the rotting door sill and lay sprawling in the semidarkness of the interior.

“Honestly,” Trixie moaned to Honey, “if there’s anything in the whole of Westches-ter County to trip over, Bobby trips over it.”

Together, they helped the little boy to his feet and carried him out to the bright light. Blood was trickling from his right knee. Trixie was used to Bobby’s accidents, but she knew that the sight of blood sometimes made Honey feel faint.

“It’s nothing,” she said quickly as she tied her clean handkerchief around the cut. “Bobby is always covered with bandages, anyway. He must have fallen on a pebble in the dirt floor.”

“I wanna go home,” Bobby was wailing.

“Of course you do,” Honey cried sympathetically. “But let’s ask Regan to look at your knee first. He knows all about first aid, you know.”

“I want Regan,” Bobby said promptly through his tears. “I love Regan. He’ll give me a ride on Lady.”

“That’s right,” Trixie said. “If you don’t cry when he puts iodine on your cut. Do you want to ride pickaback on my shoulders, or can you walk?”

Bobby tossed his silky curls. “I never yell when people put iodine on me.” He start-ed off up the grassy slope toward the stable, first hopping, then limping, and final-ly, when he caught sight of Regan, he broke into a run.

The tall, broad-shouldered stable hand scooped the boy into his arms and gently removed Trixie’s improvised bandage.

“First aid me, Regan,” Bobby ordered. “First aid me. Take me up to the room on top of the g’rage and bandage me up.”

“That I will,” Regan said, grinning. “You didn’t cut yourself on a rusty nail, did you?”

“We don’t know what he fell on,” Trixie replied and turned to Honey. “I guess we’d better go back and look inside the cottage with flashlights to make sure. If it was a rusty nail that cut him, Bobby should have a booster tetanus shot. Puncture wounds, you know.”

Honey nodded. “There’re a couple of flashlights in the tack room. All right if we borrow them, Regan?”

“Natch,” the pleasant-faced stable hand said as he strode toward the garage with Bobby. “The kid probably cut himself on a harmless pebble, but you girls had bet-ter make sure. Meanwhile, I’ll wash the knee and paint it with iodine.”

Five minutes later the girls stood at the entrance to the old cottage. “He must have fallen right about here,” Trixie said, pointing with the beam of her flashlight. “He’s got short legs, so when he tripped on the sill--” She stopped. Something glittered in the beam of her flashlight. “A piece of glass,” she said, moving cautiously inside.

Honey followed her, and then they saw that the glittering object was imbedded in the dirt floor. Trixie pried it loose with a twig.

“Oh, golly,” she gasped. “It looks just like the stone in the ring Jim gave me. You remember, Honey, his great-aunt’s solitaire which we found up at the mansion be-fore it burned. Dad put it in our safety deposit box at the bank until I’m older. But this couldn’t be a diamond.”

She led the way outside and handed the stone to Honey. Honey examined it care-fully. The facets glittered brilliantly in the bright sunlight. After a moment, Honey said in an awed tone of voice, “But it is a diamond, Trixie! I’m sure! How on earth did it get inside this old, tumbledown cottage?”

Chapter 2

An Eavesdropper

Trixie’s round blue eyes popped open with amazement. She stared at the glittering stone in Honey’s hand.

“A d-diamond,” she stuttered. “So that’s what Bobby cut his knee on?”

To check, Honey went back inside the cottage and examined the dirt floor again. “That’s right,” she finally said. “There’s absolutely nothing else in here but dirt, not even cobwebs.”

Trixie followed her inside. “That’s funny,” she said. “There should be cobwebs. It’s damp and dark--a spider’s heaven. Do you suppose the gardener has been in here recently?”

Honey shook her head. “Old Gallagher never takes an unnecessary step. Besides, he couldn’t possibly have dropped this stone. I think it’s very valuable. Mother has one in her engagement ring that’s not much larger than this and it’s worth thou-sands of dollars.”

Trixie gasped. “Are you sure it’s a diamond, Honey?”

Honey nodded. “Daddy taught me how to tell the difference between real gems and imitations.” She frowned. “But I can’t imagine how it got imbedded in this dirt floor. As far as I know, nobody has been in here since the old days when the drive-way used to wind down here from the house. After automobiles were invented, the people we bought the place from put in the new driveway which goes straight up from the road to the garage.”