The Mysterious Code Read online

  “Spider Webster!” Trixie said. “Those men who took the desk had masks on. They were real crooks.”

  Spider waved his hand nervously. “Forget it, Trixie. There are half a hundred things more important that are bothering the police.”

  “Well, they’re going to get a chance to bother once more,” Trixie said vehemently. “I don’t understand you, Spider. I’m going to march myself right down to the police station and report it now.”

  “Don’t do it!” Spider warned.

  Trixie hesitated, her hand on the doorknob. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean just this,” Spider said, his face reddening, “that you’ll get your club into more trouble than Mr. Stratton caused. Who do you suppose complained to him and to the board about secret societies in the first place?”

  “The police?” asked Trixie.

  “Figure it out yourself,” said Spider. “Since that business came up with the school board there hasn’t been any more vandalism at the school, has there?”

  “No,” Trixie admitted. “I’d give a good deal to know who did that damage at the school. What do you mean when you say the vandalism stopped after the talks we had with Mr. Stratton?”

  “I mean just this: Maybe it was an inside job at the school. Maybe some kid did it for spite because he’d been shut out of the clubs.”

  “He wouldn’t steal for that reason,” Trixie said.

  “How do you know what a kid would do if he didn’t have the right guidance at home?” Spider asked. “You and the Wheeler and Lynch kids don’t know what it is to be up against trouble. You’ve always had it easy.”

  “Why, Spider Webster, we work hard, every one of us.”

  “Yeah, but your folks make it easy for you. It wouldn’t hurt any of you to be a little bit nicer to some of the other kids in school who don’t have it so good.” Spider’s face was serious.

  Trixie didn’t answer for a little while. Then she said thoughtfully, “Maybe we do stick together too much. I guess it’s just because we’ve been working so hard. I never thought about it before, Spider. Maybe you’re right.”

  “You just bet I’m right,” Spider said. “You kids always high-hat Tad, for instance. I know he’s not perfect, but he’s not bad either. All that business about helping kids on the other side of the world—try to do something for some kids nearer home.”

  “Why, Spider,” Trixie said sadly, “we have been pretty selfish, haven’t we? Not a single one of the Bob-Whites ever wanted to be. I know that. I’m going to talk to them about what you’ve said. Thanks, Spider.”

  After school Trixie told the rest of the B.W.G.’s that Spider didn’t think the mysterious visit to the clubhouse was very important.

  “Don’t worry too much about it,” Mart said. “He’ll come around to helping us. Remember when we were shut up in that red trailer, and had such a time convincing Spider we were really kidnaped?”

  “I remember,” Honey said. “You told us you had to bring out a tape recording of that man’s voice to prove it to Spider. He’s queer.”

  “I think he’s worried about Tad,” Diana said.

  “You don’t mean that he thinks Tad stole the desk?” Honey asked.

  “No, he doesn’t think that,” Trixie said. “It’s something a lot different, and I’m ashamed. I think you will all be, too, after I tell you!” So she told them of her conversation with Spider.

  “He makes us sound like a bunch of snobs,” Mart said. “And we’re not. I’m downright jealous of Tad because he’s in the Pony League and I’m not.”

  “Tell Tad so some time,” Trixie said. “I think Spider is right, in a way. Maybe we have been thoughtless and didn’t mean anything, but if you think about it as I have since I talked to Spider, you’ll realize how much we keep to ourselves. It isn’t only after school hours, but at school, too.”

  “Tad is a kind of goon,” Diana insisted.

  “Maybe he wouldn’t be if we’d be a little more decent to him,” Trixie said. “I, for one, am going to try.”

  “It won’t hurt the rest of us to try, too,” Jim said. “Right, gang?”

  “Right!” they answered.

  “I just hope Spider will help us find out a few things,” Trixie continued, her point made. “There’s some kind of a hook-up among those people who were looking into the clubhouse that night, the masked robbers who stole the desk, that boy who was shoveling snow, and even the schoolhouse vandals.”

  It was only a few days later when part of that theory was disproved.

  The Bob-Whites were all at the clubhouse working: Honey and Diana were stuffing the cloth dolls, Mart was working on a chair, and Brian and Jim were looking over a group of framed pictures that had been given them. Trixie was sitting at a table surrounded by papers, arranging the route for Tom and Regan to follow to pick up the antiques to be exhibited.

  “Someone’s coming round the corner of the clubhouse,” Honey announced.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  Brian answered it. A small Japanese man stood there, hat in hand, bowing. “Please, I like to talk to the boss girl,” he said.

  “We don’t have any boss,” Mart said, standing back of Brian. Then he added politely, “Won’t you come in?”

  “He probably means Trixie,” Jim said, smiling. “If we have a boss, she’s it.”

  “Miss Trixie, yes,” said the Japanese man. “Cook at Wheeler house tell me Miss Trixie have sword, I think maybe old samurai sword.”

  Trixie looked a little shamefaced. She didn’t realize she had such a reputation for being bossy. “Jim and Brian and Mart know about the swords,” she said. “They polished them and oiled them. Would you like to see them?”

  “Yes, please,” the Japanese man said.

  So Brian and Jim took the swords down from the closet wall where they had hung them. The Japanese man picked up the longer sword and held it lovingly, running his right thumb up and down the single cutting edge.

  He took it over under the strongest light to examine the marking on the hilt. Then he picked up the dagger and examined it just as carefully.

  “Very old samurai swords,” he said. “Very old. Maybe belong to Satsuma clan. You sell them?”

  “We hope to sell them when we have our antique show next month,” Trixie said. “We couldn’t sell them before that, could we, Jim?”

  “Not without breaking our club agreement,” Jim told her.

  “You see, Mr.—”

  “Oto Hakaito,” he said and bowed. He seems to be always bowing, Trixie thought.

  “You see, Mr. Hakaito,” she explained, “we agreed among ourselves that we wouldn’t sell anything from our collection before the show. Several people have wanted to buy certain articles, and we thought it would only be fair if everyone had the same chance the day of the show. Someone else asked about the swords.”

  “Yes, I know,” the Japanese man said, bowing again. “My brother Kasyo and I would very much like to buy samurai swords.”

  Then Oto turned around to the B.W.G.’s, circled around them, and bowed again. “I have confession to make,” he said. “Samurai swords very much loved by Japanese people. In Tokyo is big museum where are many swords. My brother and I like to buy these swords. Send them to museum in Tokyo. Make our father who live in that city very proud.”

  “What did you mean by ‘confession’?” Mart asked. “There isn’t anything wrong about wanting to buy the old swords.”

  “Confession is this,” Oto Hakaito said sadly. “One night, the night Miss Honey’s cook told us about the swords, we come here, my brother and I, to ask to see them. When we arrive there is no one here. So,” he continued, “we cannot wait. We flash light through windows to try to see swords. We very much disappointed no one home. You angry?”

  “Of course we aren’t angry,” Trixie said, relieved. “I was scared that night, though. I saw you. I went back for my notebook just in time to see you get into your car and leave. We thought you were thieves.”
/>   “Hakaito brothers not thieves,” Oto said quickly. “Good vegetable gardeners, not thieves. Why you not call to us? We come back.”

  “I was too scared,” Trixie said. “I’m relieved now, to know who it was.”

  Oto Hakaito showed his white teeth in a broad smile. “Still cannot buy samurai swords?” he asked.

  “No chance now,” said Trixie and Jim together. Then Jim went on, “We will see, however, that you have the fairest kind of a chance at the show.”

  “I thank you very much,” said Oto Hakaito, bowing deeply as he turned to leave.

  “Well,” Jim said, “that blows up your theory, Trixie, that the mysteries were related. I’m sure the Hakaito brothers had nothing to do with stealing the desk.”

  “Who are the Hakaito brothers?” Brian asked. “Does anyone know?”

  “I think they have a truck garden on the other side of Sleepyside,” Honey answered. “And a produce shop in town. I’m pretty sure they are the ones who sell vegetables and fruits to our cook.”

  “That figures,” said Mart. “That’s how they found out about the swords. I hope they are able to buy them. They belong in Tokyo if the Japanese think that much of them.”

  “I think they do, too,” Trixie said. “But why would Honey’s family’s cook talk to Japanese gardeners about swords?”

  “It could come about in the most natural way,” Mart answered. “Don’t imagine a lot of foreign intrigue. You are inadequately equipped to cope with a problem of such magnitude.”

  Trixie snorted.

  “Translated, Mart means you’ve enough to occupy your mind in this hemisphere,” Jim said. “Keep out of Asia!”

  “You all make me tired,” Trixie said. “When something comes up, the rest of you just sit back and wonder and wish. I do something about it. Then you make fun of me. Why doesn’t someone else get busy and find out where that desk is, and who upset a little boy and gave him pneumonia?”

  “Phewwww! We’ve been trying,” Mart said. “You don’t do all your sleuthing singlehanded, either.”

  “Sometimes I wish she did,” Honey said. “I’m a sleuth against my will.”

  “The Reluctant Flatfoot,” Mart called her. “Maybe Spider is right and the desk will turn up in some odd place.”

  Chapter 9

  Lost in a Blizzard

  “I’m afraid we can’t work on the furniture at the club tonight,” Honey told Trixie when they met in the corridor on their way to class. “Or try to solve any mysteries either.”

  “Why not?” Trixie asked. “We have to use every minute we can. Why can’t we work?”

  “Because Regan is pretty mad at us. He says we never help him exercise the horses any more,” Honey said.

  Trixie’s face fell. “We can’t afford to have Regan mad at us,” she said. “He’s one of the best friends anyone ever had.”

  “Miss Trask, too. She said she never sees us any more. She misses Bobby particularly.” Honey was exasperated with Trixie at times. She wished her friend wouldn’t try to solve every mystery all by herself. Honey wanted to be the kind of detective who sat in an office and directed other people. She had no liking for danger.

  Trixie was just the opposite. The more involved a situation seemed to be, the better she liked it.

  Adventure—even danger—beckoned to her and found her willing. The mysterious happenings that annoyed Honey and, in fact, the other members of the Bob-Whites of the Glen only excited Trixie. She would like to spend every moment with the club and its problems.

  Trixie was scrupulous, though, about doing work that was expected of her. If Regan wanted the horses exercised, she would do it, no matter what she would rather do. Until Honey Wheeler’s family had bought Manor House, Trixie had never had a chance to ride a horse, and she had longed for one. Now the Wheelers’ five riding horses were at the disposal of Honey’s and Jim’s friends. Red-haired Regan lost his red-haired temper when the horses weren’t exercised and everything wasn’t shipshape around the stables.

  “We’ll tell the boys when we meet them at noon that we have to ride,” Honey said. “Regan surely can use some help. He’s had Tom, our chauffeur, riding. If there’s anything Tom hates more than being away from the cars I don’t know what it is.”

  “That’s true,” Trixie agreed. “And if there’s anything Regan hates more than an automobile, it’s another automobile. They’re both super at the jobs they have.”

  “That’s why my daddy doesn’t want anything to happen that might make either of them want to leave,” Honey said. “Why can’t Bobby come over to our house and visit Miss Trask and Regan tonight after school? He used to be with them often before he was sick. Diana’s little twin brothers Larry and Terry have been at our house several times. Regan is crazy about children. He was raised in an orphanage, and I guess that’s the reason. Can’t Bobby come over?”

  “I’m afraid not. I thought you knew that Bobby hasn’t been allowed to go out of the house yet. He hasn’t quite recovered from his sickness after that desk was stolen. I wish Miss Trask and Regan would come to see him. You remember old Brom, the man with the whiskers who was at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house? I told you about him. He comes to see Bobby often. He just loves him. He doesn’t have money to buy presents for Bobby, but the things he brings are wonderful. He made a willow whistle for Bobby that plays several notes.”

  “I’d love to see it,” Honey said.

  “He carved queer little witches and goblins for Bobby, too,” Trixie said. “I think Brom really thinks the elves live in the mountains near here. I know Bobby believes it. You should hear some of the legends old Brom tells Bobby. If someone would put them in a book, I know the book would sell.”

  “Maybe some day we could collect them,” Honey suggested, “if Brom would tell them to us so we could write them down. That would be a good project for the B.W.G.’s, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not for me,” Trixie said. “You know the kind of marks I get in English.”

  “The poems you wrote for your term paper were beautiful—the ones about the Navaho Indians. You wrote them after we came back from the ranch,” Honey said. “You got an A on them.”

  “All I did was to repeat some of the ceremonial songs,” Trixie said, “and maybe twist them around a bit. I can’t write prose. Poems sing inside my head at times. It’s when I try to put them down on paper that I fail. Jeepers, Honey, we’re going to be late for class. The corridor is deserted. I didn’t hear the bell, did you?”

  “Not a sound,” Honey said and they hurried into the English classroom.

  At noon when Trixie told the boys that Regan was provoked at them for not helping exercise the horses, Jim said, “Honey must have seen Regan yesterday instead of today, or she must have misunderstood. Brian and Mart and I rode all the horses last evening. We took turns. I saw Tom this morning riding Susie, and Mother had Strawberry.”

  “That leaves Jupiter, Lady, and Starlight,” Honey said.

  “I’ll ride Jupiter tonight,” Brian said. He usually rode the chestnut gelding Starlight, but he longed to give Jupiter, Jim’s big black gelding, a real workout.

  “Not tonight, Brian,” Jim said. “He hasn’t had enough exercise lately and he’ll be too hard to manage. I’ll take him. I seem to have put the Indian sign on him. He’s better with me than with anyone else. We’ll all have to pay more attention to exercising the horses from now on.”

  “Let me ride Starlight,” Mart begged. “You said I could, Brian.”

  Brian nodded his permission.

  “I’ll ride Lady,” Honey said.

  “Then Brian and I’ll go home and help Moms,” Trixie said. “It’s hard to do everything. We just have to work every minute we can on the furniture. We just have to study, too, and to help at home. I don’t know what Tad can find to make him jealous. We work harder than people do in the mines in Africa.”

  “I think you are confusing, in your usual befuddled manner, Africa with Siberia,” Mart said smugly. “If you’d do
a little reading now and then, instead of pursuing elusive individuals who practice infraction of the law, you’d—”

  “I’d be as big a bore as you are, Mart Belden, with your big words that don’t mean anything,” Trixie, her face red, retorted.

  “Don’t argue, please,” Diana said. “Remember, we have to work together.”

  “All right, little dove of peace,” Mart said. He really liked Diana. She had a way of smoothing his feathers when they bristled.

  Though Mart and Trixie seemed usually to be at swords’ points, if anyone said a word against either one of them, the other would spring to his defense immediately. It was just that they were too near one another in age. Because Mart was eleven months older, and a boy, and for that reason seemed to enjoy a few extra privileges, Trixie continuously tried to get even with him.

  When the school bus stopped at Manor House that afternoon, Mart got off with Honey, Jim, and Diana. Diana usually cut across the upper part of the Wheeler estate to get to her own home. Trixie and Brian went on to Crabapple Farm.

  Jim’s black and white springer spaniel, Patch, ran out barking and waving his tail like a semaphore. Regan, leading Jupiter, called to Jim, “Tell him to be quiet! He’s making Jupiter nervous, but he won’t mind me.”

  “You know I’ve trained him to mind only me,” Jim said. “Heel, Patch!” The little dog dropped behind Jim and froze into immediate obedience. It was such a beautiful performance that everyone applauded, even the bus driver.

  Jim stooped to pull the little dog’s ears affectionately.

  “We’re sorry about not exercising the horses,” Trixie called from the bus. “It’s just that we’ve been so busy working on the antique show.”

  “I know that,” Regan said, “but the horses don’t. You’ll have to do better, Trixie, or we’ll have a bunch of wild horses on our hands and nothing to ride in the spring.”

  The bus driver stepped on the accelerator. “We’ll do better,” Trixie called through the window. “See if we don’t.”

  The bus went on down the valley to Crabapple Farm.