The Mystery of the Emeralds (18 page)

“The young lady’s right,” he said. “It’s a rare piece
and worth a lot of money. I could have sold it to a dealer friend of mine, but I’ve got a sentimental streak in me, and I figured Mr. Carver, here, would like it.”

“You mean—” Mr. Carver started to say.

“I mean I’m willing to let you have it for a fraction of what the thing is really worth,” Jenkins said, a cunning smile on his face. “It’s yours for four hundred dollars, and you can’t say that’s not giving it away.”

Trixie didn’t bat an eye as she gave the box back to Mr. Carver. She prayed silently that he wouldn’t make a deal right then and there. She desperately wanted time. There were several things she
had
to know. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor had there been from the moment she had taken a good look at the contents of the little tin box.

“Four hundred dollars!” Mr. Carver said slowly, again opening the box and gazing at the necklace. “I’m afraid it will take some time to raise such a large amount of money. Could you give me a day or so to see what arrangements I can make?”

“Yes, yes,” Jenkins said, his manner becoming more and more affable as he saw the possibility of his offer being accepted. “Take your time. I don’t want to put no pressure on you. What say if I come back tomorrow afternoon?”

“Well, that doesn’t give me much time,” Mr. Carver said, his voice uncommonly low, “but I’ll see what I can do.”

This arrangement being apparently satisfactory to Jenkins, he seemed eager for the interview to be over. After pocketing the box and giving a perfunctory nod in the general direction of the Bob-Whites, he went away.

Mr. Carver sat, slowly stroking his forehead, until Trixie came over and plopped down on the floor in front of him.

“Do you
really
believe what Jenkins told you?” she asked softly.

“Why, yes, child,” he answered, putting his hand on her head. “Why should I doubt him? He had the proof with him, didn’t he?”

“What are you getting at?” Jim asked. He and the other Bob-Whites clustered around her, waiting to hear what she had to say. “Don’t you think Jenkins is on the level?”

“No, I don’t believe him for one minute!” Trixie replied confidently. “And I’ll tell you why. Did you take a good look at that box, Mr. Carver?”

“Why, no,” he said, “as a matter of fact I didn’t. I just saw that it was old and rusty as though it had been exposed to the damp for a long time.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Trixie said. “It was a box that some kind of patent medicine originally came in, and on the cover, way down at the bottom, in little letters, it said, ‘Patented in 1908.’ So how could Ruth have hidden the necklace in it in 1860 before the Civil War?”

“Maybe Jenkins just used that box to put the emeralds in to bring over here,” Di suggested.

“No, I don’t think so,” Trixie insisted. “Remember he said, ‘This is the box I found at Rosewood Hall’?”

“That’s right, he did,” Brian said. “Then how do you figure he found the emeralds?”

“I was just coming to that,” Trixie answered, taking a deep breath. “In the first place, the necklace in that box was nothing like the one Ruth was wearing in the picture in the locket!”

“I don’t remember it very clearly,” Mr. Carver said. “Get me the locket, will you, Jim? I want to have another look.”

Jim brought the gold heart from the desk drawer and handed it to him.

“You’re right, Trixie!” he said excitedly. “It isn’t the same!”

“Well, how do you know the necklace in the picture is the same one we’re hunting for?” Mart asked.

“We don’t, for sure,” Trixie admitted, “but I assumed it was the same one because the locket was a Christmas present to Ruth and the emeralds had a special association with Christmas. Remember, they were supposed to be worn at that time every year.”

“That’s just supposition again,” Brian said. “I’m sorry to burst your balloon, Sis, but you’ve got to have better proof than that, I’m afraid.”

“Well, it just so happens I have,” Trixie answered, a smug look on her face. “You see, the necklace that Jenkins showed us was just a piece of junk jewelry!”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Carver asked, his hands gripping the arms of his chair until the knuckles showed white.

“Of course I’m sure!” Trixie said. “Didn’t you think so, too?” she asked, turning to Di and Honey.

“I thought so, but I didn’t trust my own judgment,” Di said.

“It’s just like the costume jewelry they sell in any department store,” Honey said. “It’s
good
junk jewelry, if you know what I mean, but it certainly isn’t
real
.”

“Why didn’t you say something when Jenkins was here?” Mart asked impatiently.

“Well, Trixie gave us the high sign,” Di said, “so we just pretended to admire it, too.”

“Well, what do you know!” Mart cried. “Leave it to the girls to know a genuine ‘jool’ when they see it!”

“What was Jenkins’s idea of trying to pawn something like that off on Mr. Carver?” Di asked innocently.

“Oh, it’s simple,” Trixie said. “He wanted to draw a red herring across our trail, so he’d have more time to look for the real necklace.”

“That’s right,” Brian agreed. “He probably thought Mr. Carver, like a lot of us dumb males, wouldn’t know whether they were fake or not, and he obviously didn’t expect to find anyone else here who might question them.”

“What did he say when he phoned you yesterday?” Trixie asked Mr. Carver.

“Well, I must say, it was a rather strange conversation,” he replied. “He started out by saying he was sorry about my accident, and asked if I was all right again. I wondered how he knew about it, and then today when he came in I had an uncomfortable feeling that he had been right here in this room before.”

“Oh, I’ve had that sensation,” Mart said. “Sometimes you’ll be doing something and all of a sudden you’re sure you’ve been in exactly that same situation before. It’s kind of eerie, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Mr. Carver said, his brows wrinkled in
thought, “particularly since, so far as I know, Jenkins has never been in Green Trees. My lawyer handled all the details of the sale of Rosewood from his office, so there was no need of our meeting here.”

“Well, try not to worry about it, Mr. Carver,” Trixie said reassuringly. “The important thing is that we didn’t fall into his trap.”

“You’re right, Trixie,” he said, smiling down at her, “and we mustn’t forget you have some unfinished business to attend to. I hope the secret staircase is aired out by now. Let’s go in right now and see if the fan was any help.”

“Now you take it easy!” Brian warned Trixie as she got ready to go down the circular stairs. “If you begin to feel the least out of breath, you come back.”

“I promise,” Trixie answered as she took the flashlight and disappeared into the opening.

“The air’s a lot fresher today,” she called back after she had taken several steps down. “I don’t think I’ll have a bit of trouble.”

Everyone gave a sigh of relief at that and then waited in silent expectation for several minutes. Finally Jim couldn’t stand it another second. He called to see if she was all right.

“Yes, and I think I’ve finally got to the bottom!” Her
voice came back, muffled but strong. Then soon after, “There’s an opening down here and it looks as if it goes into a tunnel!”

“Don’t take any chances!” Jim shouted to her.

“I won’t, but I’m going on in,” Trixie called back. “Don’t worry if you don’t hear me for a little while. I’ll be back soon.”

Another period of anxious waiting, and then the Bob-Whites and Mr. Carver heard her coming back up the stairs. As soon as she poked her head out into the room they knew that she had discovered the secret passage!

“It’s there! It’s there!” she cried, her eyes shining. “A tunnel big enough to stand up in, all made of brick!”

“Hurrah for Trixie!” Mart cried as Jim grabbed her and swung her around. It was a wild scene for several minutes. Then Trixie happened to glance in the direction of the door to the hall, and there, looking like a thundercloud, stood Miss Bates!

“Great day in the morning! Just what’s the meaning of this uproar?” she asked looking at Trixie stormily. “What did Edgar mean when he said you weren’t the obstreperous kind? And him with that grievous head wound, too. You should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves!”

She was talking so fast that no one had a chance to interrupt her until she ran out of breath and was forced to stop. Then Mr. Carver rolled his chair over to her and, motioning her to come in, said with a laugh, “Oh, Carolyn, you couldn’t be more wrong! Relax! We were just having a little celebration.”

“Celebration!” she repeated angrily, looking around the room. “You call it a celebration when these young hoodlums break this priceless paneling, and make so much noise that you couldn’t even hear when I knocked on the door? Celebration, indeed!”

She was so furious that she was shaking, and only when she noticed the bowl of custard starting to slip out of her basket did she stop her tirade. By this time Edgar Carver was laughing uproariously. That only made Miss Bates more furious.

“Please, Miss Bates,” Trixie said softly, “I’m sorry we were so noisy, but we
were
pretty excited. You see, we finally found the secret passage.”

This was almost more than Carolyn Bates could stand. She looked from Trixie to Mr. Carver in complete disbelief, and then, seeing him nod his head, she sat down abruptly on a nearby love seat, not even noticing when Trixie rescued the custard by quietly taking the basket and setting it on the floor.

“That hole in the wall isn’t broken paneling,” Mr. Carver explained. “It’s the entrance to the stairs leading down through the cellar.”

“Well, I’ll have to see it to believe it,” Miss Bates answered, taking off her hat and gloves and getting up from the love seat.

“Would you like to go down and have a look?” Trixie asked, a mischievous smile on her face as she thought of buxom Miss Bates trying to make her way down the narrow steps.

“Good heavens, no!” Miss Bates replied, putting her head inside the open panel. “I can see it wasn’t built for the likes of me! I’ll have to be satisfied with having you tell me about it. Did you figure this out from the blueprints?”

“Well, yes and no,” Trixie began cautiously, not yet knowing whether Miss Bates’s anger had really subsided. “You see, I was puzzled, just as you were about those funny measurements between this room and Mr. Carver’s solarium, so I examined the walls in here and noticed that this particular panel wasn’t as solid as the others.”

“Yes, yes, go on,” Miss Bates urged, leaning forward expectantly.

“And then I felt along the moldings until I discovered
this little depression.” Trixie pulled the panel down so she could show Miss Bates what she was talking about. “You see, it goes up and down just like a window.”

Miss Bates moved the panel several times as though to convince herself that it really worked as Trixie had said.

“My dear,” she said, holding out her hand, “I apologize! You’re a smart girl. With all the work I’ve done on old houses it would never have occurred to me that a staircase could be built in such a small area. Now, go on, and tell me more about what’s down below.”

Trixie explained how the steps evidently had been built inside one of the huge piers that supported the house, going down below the cellar-floor level and connecting with a subterranean tunnel.

“Have you gone all the way through it?” Miss Bates asked expectantly.

“No, I had just come back to tell Mr. Carver what I’d found when you came in,” Trixie said, “but I mean to go back and look for—” an almost imperceptible warning sign from Jim made her hesitate before she said, “—look for the opening at the other end.”

She had been so excited that she had almost disclosed the secret of the emeralds, but she had caught herself in time.

“I do wish I could stay and hear about what you find,” Miss Bates said, “but I have to meet the architect who is working on the old Bailey house, and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of telling me I’m late. May I come back tomorrow, Edgar, or am I wearing out my welcome?”

“You know you are always welcome, Carolyn,” he said warmly as he started to escort her into the hall.

Miss Bates suddenly remembered her basket and, picking it up, she handed it to Honey, asking that she be sure to see that Edgar ate the custard. “The other dish,” she explained, “contains the poultice which should be heated and put on his head.”

Edgar Carver thanked her for the custard, but Trixie noticed he made no promises about using the poultice. She knew that he had long ago become accustomed to his friend Carolyn’s whims.

Naturally the Bob-Whites were impatient to see the secret tunnel. While they were waiting for Mr. Carver to return from showing Miss Bates to the door they decided that each one should make a trip down the circular staircase.

“If any of you happen to see the brick marked with an X when you’re in the tunnel, just give the Bob-White signal,” Trixie suggested, “but don’t waste a lot of time looking for it.”

“We know what you’re getting at,” Mart laughed. “You don’t want any of us stealing your thunder. You want to find the emeralds all by yourself, don’t you?”