The Mysterious Code (18 page)

Just before they left, Tom called to Trixie, “You’ve heard about Bull Thompson’s Uncle Snipe, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” said Trixie, wondering. “What about Snipe?”

“He’s back at that bookie business on Hawthorne Street, I guess,” Tom said. “I saw him the day after Diana’s Valentine party driving a big blue and white sedan. Say, he could have been here when the clubhouse was wrecked.”

“Blue and white sedan!” Trixie exclaimed. “There was a blue and white sedan stolen that night. I’ve wondered about that Snipe Thompson … he just could have been angry enough at me about Bull to want to burn our clubhouse.”

“Sounds like Snipe’s doing,” Tom said. “I think he’s
just out of prison after serving time for robbery. Forget about it tonight, Trixie, but better check on it with Spider in the morning.”

“I will. Thanks, Tom. Wait till I tell Spider!”

“That Snipe’s a bad one,” Tom said. “Well, everyone in?” he asked the Wheelers and the Lynches. “Guess Regan and I are elected to pick up the antiques tomorrow for the show. See you then, Trixie. Let’s go, kids.”

Trixie, Brian, and Mart had set the alarm for seven o’clock. First they had to collect all the mended furniture from the clubhouse and take it to the showroom.

Then the boys had to go to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s, to the Wheelers’, to half a dozen other places to pick up the antiques to be exhibited. Tom and Regan would be waiting to help.

The Hakaito brothers were due at the showroom at eleven o’clock to arrange their exhibit.

After the antiques were all assembled the Bob-Whites would have to arrange them in the showroom, and in the windows.

Before any of this would be done, however, Trixie had an errand she thought more important than anything else on their schedule.

“Did you hear what Tom said to me just before he left last night?” she asked her mother.

“No. I didn’t go out to the car. What was it?”

“I told you that Sergeant Molinson told us the thieves used a blue and white car they stole, to make
their getaway from our clubhouse that night, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did, and Mart told me the sergeant told
you
pretty emphatically to stay out of their business,” Mrs. Belden said. “I hope you’ll take his advice.”

“He’s a terrible sour-puss,” Trixie said. “I can at least call Spider over at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house and tell him. He doesn’t go to work till about ten o’clock.”

So Trixie called Spider.

When she came back from the telephone her face was serious.

“Spider said he knows Sergeant Molinson won’t try to do anything about Snipe Thompson,” she said. “At least not till he has more evidence.”

“With the antique show tomorrow, why don’t you forget about Snipe?” Mart said. “We got the desk back and the swords back. Now forget about it!”

“Mart is right,” Mr. Belden said, as he put his coffee cup on the table. “There hasn’t been a robbery on Main Street for fifty years—oh, maybe shoplifters in the stores, but that goes on all the time.”

“Maybe
this
will worry you, then,” Trixie said. “Spider can’t be on the job tonight because he has late duty at his intersection. He said he’d go over to the showroom on his own time after eleven o’clock.”

“Spider doesn’t need to go at all,” Mr. Belden said,
“and he knows it. He’s only doing it because of his interest in the Bob-Whites. The regular patrolman will be on duty and that’s enough protection.”

Trixie’s face fell. “Doesn’t
anyone
feel any responsibility?” she asked.

“I for one am not going to give it another thought,” Brian said. “Tom and Regan will be here any minute with the station wagon and pickup truck. I’m going to finish my breakfast and be ready when they come.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Mr. Belden said.

“Honey and Diana are coming with them,” Trixie said. “Tom will go with us to the clubhouse to get a load of things there and then take us to the showroom.”

“Here they come now!” Bobby shouted, peering from his place at the table. “Terry and Larry aren’t with him. Can I go to their house, Moms? And can we help with the anteeks?”

“Later in the day maybe, Bobby, if the sun comes out and the day is warm. Please try to say ‘may I’ instead of ‘can I,’ will you?”

Bobby hid his head. “I don’t get to holp with the show at all,” he said.

“I know what we’ll do this afternoon,” Mr. Belden told Bobby. “If it’s a warm day I’ll go over and get the boys at the Lynches’ and we’ll all go to Sleepyside
and distribute the handbills for the Bob-Whites.”

“That will be super!” Trixie said and hugged her little brother. “That will be the biggest ‘holp’ of all.”

There was good hard work to do in the showroom before the girls could even begin to decorate it for the show. The windows were dusty. The floor needed to be cleaned. There was dust everywhere. It would take dozens of pails of water and detergent to make the room presentable. “I don’t know
why
we didn’t think of this before,” Trixie said.

It all looked pretty hopeless till Tom arrived with Celia. “Mrs. Wheeler said I could help you a while,” Celia said and she took the mop out of Trixie’s hands. “Your mother is sending Mrs. Bruger, your cleaning woman,” she told Diana. “We’ll soon have the place looking like something. You girls just go ahead and put papers on the shelves and arrange everything.”

Honey had brought a roll of flowered shelf edging, and the girls dusted the shelves, tacked the edging in place with thumbtacks, then covered the shelves with fresh white paper.

Along the shelves they arranged a group of duck decoys Tad had brought them. They had belonged to the father of one of the Hawks. When Tad told him about the show, he donated them.

“The ducks look as though they were alive,” Trixie said.

“Yes, wasn’t it swell of Tad?” Diana asked. “The wooden toys he got for us can go on the next shelf,” she went on. “Hand me that old tin peddler’s cart, Honey, please. There! Doesn’t that look marvelous? Look at all the little tin pans and bowls he has for sale in his cart.”

“And the lanterns,” Honey said, as she hung a cluster of miniature tin lanterns on the back of the tin peddler’s cart. “My little brothers would be thrilled to have a toy like that.”

“It would last about ten minutes with Bobby,” Trixie said. “Now take this doll-baby buggy, Diana, and put it next on the shelf. Isn’t it priceless? The original flowered lining is still in it, and it rolls. See?” Trixie pushed the high, carved wood baby carriage along the shelf to stand back of the peddler’s cart.

“They are ours, too, to sell,” Trixie added. “They aren’t just to exhibit. Tad said the woman gave them to him for us to sell.”

“There surely has been a change in Tad,” Diana said. “Remember what a goon he used to be?”

“Maybe we just thought so. Maybe
we
were the goons, not Tad,” Trixie said.

“That’s what Spider seemed to think, didn’t he?” Honey asked. “I like Tad now. I like him very much.”

“I guess we all do,” Trixie agreed. “Shall we put some of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s silver on this other shelf?”

“No,” Honey said. “It isn’t for sale. Let’s try to keep all the things for sale on one side of the room, and the ones for exhibiting on the other side. That way we won’t be in danger of selling anything that doesn’t belong to us.”

Celia and Mrs. Bruger had finished cleaning the main showroom and had moved on behind the partition to put the back room in better order.

Regan and Brian and Mart arrived in the pickup truck and unloaded the first group of antiques for the exhibit side of the room.

The girls just had to leave their work to admire the beautiful old mahogany three-tiered table, the oak Bible box with its lining of blue Williamsburg paper, the pine settle and book rest, and Mrs. Vanderpoel’s little old ebony melodeon.

“Do you know what Mrs. Vanderpoel did?” Brian asked as he and Regan settled the melodeon in place. “She let us take that black walnut chest that stands in her living-room. She called it a
kas
or
schrank
. Take a look at it, Trixie.… Wait, we’ll bring it in next.”

Trixie well knew what the big Holland Dutch chest
looked like. She knew, too, that it was Mrs. Vanderpoel’s dearest treasure.

On top of the chest the girls arranged the George III silver they had polished the night Bull Thompson had been captured. The old tankards and salvers shone against the waxed walnut background.

Tom arrived then with a second load of furniture from the clubhouse. Mr. Maypenny, drawn into service, had helped him load them. Now the boys, Brian, Jim, and Mart, arrayed them on the sale side of the room. There were the cherry gate-leg tables that were Mart’s pride, the wooden Indian from the Wheelers’ attic, the gilt mirror, which stood on its base, the Pembroke table, some ladder-back chairs that came from Mrs. Vanderpoel’s lean- to kitchen, several odds and ends of wall whatnots, and some painted chairs.

“Mrs. Wheeler told me to take this, and not to put it in anyone’s hands but yours,” Tom said. He handed the doll trunk to Trixie.

“It’s the gold musical jewel box!” Trixie cried, delighted. “I haven’t seen it for weeks. Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you ever saw?” Carefully Trixie took it from the small doll trunk and set it, for exhibit, on top of the Chippendale three-tiered table, just inside the front window.

“It almost knocks your eyes out, doesn’t it?” Mart asked.

“Yes, and we’d never have had it either,” Diana said, “if Trixie hadn’t snooped till she found it hidden in the chimney.”

“I don’t like the word ‘snooped,’ ” Trixie said indignantly. “Oh, here are the Hakaito brothers with their swords and things. Isn’t this the most fun in the whole world? Jeepers, I told them I’d have some Japanese lanterns hung in the corner where they are going to put their Japanese display. Here’s the ladder. Help me, will you please, Jim?”

Jim brought the ladder to the corner just as the Hakaito brothers came in smiling, their arms full of carefully wrapped tissue bundles.

“
We
hang lanterns,” Oto said. “Later, when exhibit is in place. Now we work. You see later.” He adjusted a tall Japanese screen to close off the corner.

Jim turned around, held out his hands palms up, and shrugged. “That’s that!” he said.

While they had been talking, Diana and Honey had been busy. In the corner opposite the one where the Japanese brothers were working, on the sales side, they hung two lengths of clothesline. To these they pinned the aprons they had made. The gay-flowered patterns
and bright colors made a lovely picture.

Back of the aprons, and above them, so they were in plain view, the stuffed elephants, kittens, dogs, tigers, and bears ranged in patterned calico. Beside them the dolls sat primly, their kapok-stuffed toes hanging over the edge of the shelf.

“We’ll have to put the price tags on these later,” Honey said. “Here they are.” She took a handful of white paper squares from her pocket and put them on the shelf. “It won’t take long.”

“I’m getting so excited,” Trixie said as she stood off to look at the other girls’ work. “The room looks simply gorgeous!”

“It does!” Mr. Belden said as he stepped through the door, followed by three sturdy little boys, their hands full of sale bills. “I never guessed you had done so much work on this show.” Mr. Belden put his arm proudly around Trixie’s shoulders.

“I kept trying to tell you what it would be like, Daddy,” Trixie said, her eyes shining. “Did you have fun?” she asked the little boys who stood with big eyes in front of the toy shelves staring at the array of colorful animals.

“Yes, we did, Trixie,” Bobby said. “We put the bills in people’s letter boxes, didn’t we, Daddy?”

“They did,” Mr. Belden said. “They worked like little beavers.”

“We worked so hard we’re tired,” Larry and Terry said. “We want to eat.”

Trixie sighed. “I guess we all want to eat,” she said. “What time is it, Daddy?”

“Almost twelve o’clock,” her father answered. “If we hurry over to Wimpy’s, we can get in before the crowd comes.”

“We’ll
be
the crowd,” Mart said. “I’m starved. We’ll fill all the seats at Wimpy’s.”

“Wait till we wash our hands,” Trixie called. “Come on, Celia, Tom, Regan, Mrs. Bruger, Bob-Whites. How about you?” she called around the screen to the Hakaito brothers.

“We stay here,” they announced. “We finish work first.”

“I’ll stay, too,” Celia said. “I wouldn’t go anyplace in this old work uniform!”

“I’ll stay, too, with Celia,” Tom said. “Bring something back for us, Trixie.”

Mrs. Bruger, the cleaning woman, refused to go, too, so the rest of them trooped out.

Trixie was glad the showroom wouldn’t be deserted. There were so many valuable antiques there.