The Indian Burial Ground Mystery

five-course dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town.” With
that, he turned back to his work. Honey, who had been listening to the whole
exchange, gently took hold of her friend’s elbow.
    “Come on, Trixie,” she said. “It’s 5 o’clock. Let’s head back to the
house. Maybe we can get Miss Trask to fix us some lemonade.”
    “I don’t care if he doesn’t believe me,” Trixie muttered hotly. “I’ll
investigate on my own!”
    “Not on your own,” Honey said quietly. “Remember, I heard them, too.
I’ll help you. But in the meantime, let’s assume they were talking about the
buried treasure of archaeology, and a map of the dig site.”
    “I doubt it,” Trixie said. “I really doubt it.” The girls walked back to
the main site, where they’d left their bicycles, then continued on to the Manor
House.



4 * Suspicions
     
    The next morning ,
Trixie was ten minutes late leaving the house for the hospital. The girls had
decided to ride their bikes to and from work each day, so Mrs. Belden wouldn’t
have to drive them. But Trixie missed Honey this morning, and had to ride her
bike to town alone. She didn’t catch up with her friend until 10 o’clock, when
they were already on their rounds.
    “Honey,” she said in a loud whisper as they passed each other, “I have
to talk to you!”
    Both Trixie and Honey were pushing book carts through the hall. Part of
their job as candy stripers was to bring the little “libraries on wheels” to
each patient. There were magazines, newspapers, and paperback books to choose
from.
    “I can’t stop now,” Honey said softly. “Is it important?”
    “Of course it’s important,” Trixie said. “But I suppose I can tell you
later.”
    “I’ll meet you at 1 o’clock,” Honey said, beginning to push her cart
again. “I hope that’s okay. It’s just that there are so many floors in this
hospital.”
    “I know,” Trixie replied with a smile. “I guess the patients are glad to
see us, because they all like to chat and then take hours to pick out a book.”
    “Three patients asked me to get them things from the gift shop,” Honey
said. “I’ll be running around all morning!”
    “Look,” Trixie said, “I’ll see you after we get off. It’s important!”
    The night before, as Trixie was falling asleep, she’d had a terrible
thought. Maybe whoever had been robbing the Westchester estates—the ones she’d read about in the newspaper—were planning to rob the
Manor
    House, too. She was worried because Honey and Miss Trask were alone for
the next month. I Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler were away on a trip, i and Jim was off being a camp counselor.
    It was true that Regan was still home, but he didn’t live in the main
house. He lived in an apartment over the garage, which was separated from the
main house by about fifty feet. Regan might not hear burglars if they came
snooping around late at night.
    At 1 o’clock, the girls met on the front steps j of the hospital. As
they walked around to the bicycle rack at the side of the building, Trixie told
Honey about her fears.
    “For one thing,” she was concluding, “there are strange people around
and one of them is Harry—and he has a truck. It’s a perfect set- • up, don’t
you see? We did overhear Charles Miller and Harry talking about a ‘treasure
trove.’ And you remember that Charles spent a lot of time examining the
valuables in your living room. It all adds up.”
    “It does and it doesn’t,” Honey said reasonably. “I don’t think that
Charles Miller is a burglar—he’s a graduate student, after all. However, it’s
true that Miss Trask and I are alone in the house, and it’s also true that
people are being robbed. So I guess there is a little something
to worry about. Maybe I should mention that article you saw to Miss Trask. She
always manages to come up with a good solution.”
    Honey and Trixie pedaled their bikes along Glen Road as fast as they could.
Splitting up at the Belden driveway, they agreed to meet on the dirt road in
fifteen minutes.
    Trixie rode home, changed into shorts and a T-shirt, had a bologna
sandwich and a glass of milk, and climbed back on her bike. Pedaling as fast as
she could, she met Honey, and they quickly made their way to the dig site.
    The students and Professor Conroy were just finishing their lunch break.
Professor Conroy, after carefully wiping his hands and his mouth, began another
of his mini-lectures before they all got back to work.
    “I