The Indian Burial Ground Mystery

the rope in
his room.
    “Harry would wait for him down below, and then bring him back to the
hospital very early in the morning. He’d spend the rest of the day looking pale
and sick. It was the perfect cover.”
    “Who wouldn’t look pale and sick after being out all night!” Di joked.
    “It was a clever cover,” Brian admitted.
    “And you know what?” Trixie added. “I bet they were planning to set
Charles up, just in case the police got too close.”
    “Those beasts!” Honey exclaimed. “They were trying to make it look as if
Charles were the burglar. How awful.”
    “Thank goodness it’s all over,” Di said. “What a week!”
    “And what a day! We’d better get back home,” Brian said, standing up.
“It’s getting late.”
    “We have to start packing up,” said a student. “The dig is obviously
over.”
    “Yeah,” another student said glumly. “The dig is over, but the summer
isn’t. We won’t be able to get any other jobs, and we won’t get any course
credit, either.”
    “What bad luck,” Charles said. “The summer is ruined, and all because I
answered a fantastic-sounding ad on the bulletin board at school.”
    “Maybe not,” Di put in hopefully. “You never know. Maybe things will
work out.”
    “I don’t see how they could,” he replied sadly.
    “Charles, why don’t you pack later,” Brian said, patting his friend on
the shoulder. “Moms wants you to come back and have dinner with us tonight.”
    “Sure,” Charles said. “I’d like that.”
    “Wait till you taste Mrs. Belden’s wonderful cooking,” Honey said. She
had also been invited for dinner.
    “Great,” said Charles. “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a long
time.”
    The Bob-Whites and Charles said good-bye to the students, and walked
down the road leading out of the dig site. Trixie could see that Charles was
upset. She wished there was some way to help him.
    For dinner, Mrs. Belden made her special hamburgers, potato casserole,
and a big tossed salad with avocado dressing. There was strawberry shortcake
for dessert.
    Everyone was seated around the big diningroom table when Mr. Belden came in the front door.
    “Hey, Dad,” Mart said, reaching for a platter, “you made it in the nick
of time. We were about to eat everything up. You know us!”
    “I know you , you mean,” Mr. Belden said with a fond smile
at his exuberant and ever-hungry son.
    “How was your day, dear?” Mrs. Belden said
    as she took his jacket and his briefcase. “Sit down and tell us about
it.”
    “I have a nice surprise,” Mr. Belden said with a wide grin, “but I want
you young people to tell me about your day first. I gather it was pretty
exciting.”
    Trixie told him all about their morning at the police station, and
everything that Sergeant Molinson had found out about
Professor Conroy. There was so much to say, she hardly touched the food on her
plate.
    “And they found the Renoir in Professor Conroy’s tent,” she continued at
breakneck speed, “and they traced the rest to a warehouse in Brooklyn .
It was full of all the things they’d stolen.”
    “That’s right,” Brian put in. “Also, Harry Kemp had found out about a
hidden cache of gold that Charles was looking for. He was probably planning to
steal it from Charles, if he ever found it.”
    “By the way,” Charles said, “did they ever find Edward Palmer’s diary?”
    “They sure did,” answered Brian. “It’s back in the archive room, safe
and sound.”
    “But where was it?” asked Honey.
    “Harry Kemp had it,” Trixie said. “Apparently Charles told Harry that
he’d found the diary with the map in the archive room.”
    “I had to,” interrupted Charles. “He was pestering me day and night to get
hold of that diary.”
    “Anyway, Harry wanted to see the treasure map for himself,” Trixie
continued. “That afternoon when Charles was busy at the dig, Harry went to the
Historical Society. Jake Hanson told him that I was there, so Harry decided to
wait in his car for me to leave. I guess he didn’t want me to know he was
interested in buried treasure. Harry saw me leave, all right, but I saw him,
too.”
    “But I still don’t understand why he took the book,” Brian said. “After
all, he’d made a copy of the map for himself. He didn’t need to steal the book,
too.”
    “That was just an accident,” Trixie said. “After I was gone, Harry went
down, found the book, and copied the map on his yellow pad. When he heard