The Mysterious Code (5 page)

Bobby opened the door to Honey and Diana.

“Good morning, Mrs. Belden,” they chorused. Then without waiting for her to answer, “Trixie, just wait till you hear what we have to tell you!”

“Let me tell you
my
news first,” Trixie said. “Daddy’s bank is almost certain to let us use that old storeroom where Mr. Bennington’s electric shop used to be. It’s right on Main Street!” she added, doing a little
cha cha
step.

“That makes the show as good as a complete, entire, super-duper success right now!” Honey said and hugged Trixie.

“Now let me tell you
my
surprise,” Diana said. “So we can work on the used furniture, my daddy is going to give us an oil burner he used to use in the apartment over our garage. He will have it remodeled and installed in the clubhouse.”

“Oh, no, he won’t,” Trixie said.

Diana opened her big eyes in astonishment. “Why not?”

“Diana, please don’t look like that,” Trixie said. “I meant you know we can’t just take it as a gift.”

“My daddy won’t be using it at all,” Diana said. “Don’t be so particular, Trixie.”

“I’m not the only one who is particular, and you know it,” Trixie said. “It’s Jim. Jim is so con—cons—”

“Conscientious,” her mother supplied.

“Thanks, Moms. Jim thinks we should be careful to keep our rule: Earn everything we use for the club. I think Jim’s right. He’s always right.”

Mrs. Belden smiled a little. Trixie’s face flushed. “Well he
is
always right,” she insisted. “Maybe, though, we could compromise, if your father really isn’t going to use the oil burner, Diana.”

“He isn’t,” Diana said. “He was going to give it to anyone who’d take it away.”

“In that case, maybe Jim will think we can take it. We’ll have to pay to have it repaired and installed, or,” Trixie added, “I’d not be surprised if Jim and Brian could repair it and install it themselves. With some help from Regan, maybe.”

“Now for
my
news,” Honey said. “Regan is going to run an electric cord out from the stable to the clubhouse. Then we can have lights in the evening to work on the used furniture. Think how much longer we can work.”

Trixie spun around the room, her eyes dancing. “Isn’t it wonderful how everyone is helping?” she sang.

“That isn’t all,” Honey continued. “My mother said she was just about ready to clear out the attic and send all the odds and ends, as she called them, to some charity.”

“All those beautiful, beautiful things in your attic?” Trixie cried. “I don’t know any better charity than—”

“UNICEF, of course,” Honey said. “Mother doesn’t think the things are so beautiful. She told Jim and me this morning that we could have anything we wanted from that one big room over the upstairs library.”

“Oh!” Trixie’s face fell. “I’ve never been in that room. I thought she meant that beautiful furniture you
used to have in your city home that she has stored in the attic. That was a silly thing to think,” Trixie added.

“Some of the things in the other attic room are almost as pretty,” Honey said. “They’re older, and our show
is
an antique show. Of course they have to be glued here and there, and stained. Maybe some of the chairs have to be recovered. Why don’t we go and look at them? I’ve only looked through the cubbyhole door, myself.”

“I have to dust the house first,” Trixie said. Her mother looked at her in amazement to think she had remembered.

“We’ll help you, won’t we, Diana? Jim’s waiting for us at the house,” Honey said. “Where are Brian and Mart?”

“In town with Brian’s jalopy getting it fixed,” Trixie said. “Maybe they will be here by the time we finish dusting.”

“They are here now,” Bobby announced. He had just opened the back door to ask his mother for a cooky. “Brian’s car sounds so smooth now—just listen!”

They listened as Brian whirled the car around and backed it into the garage. It did not sound much louder than a cement mixer. The girls, hurrying around the house to finish the dusting, thought it sounded wonderful. They loved Brian’s old car almost as much as he did.

“Is there anything the boys have to do for Daddy?” Trixie asked, gathering the dustcloths and putting them in the broom closet.

“No,” her mother answered. “This is one Saturday they haven’t a thing to do. I mean outside of regular chores. They were going to wash the station wagon but it’s too cold a day for that.”

“Then may we go over to the Manor House and explore the attic? Did you hear that, Brian?” she asked her brother. “And Mart? There are some pieces of old furniture and other things in the Wheeler attic that Mrs. Wheeler said we could have for our show. Shall we go over and explore the attic now?”

“What’s keeping us?” Mart asked and picked his little brother up and put him on his shoulder.

“Me, too?” Bobby asked.

“I’m afraid not today, lamb,” Trixie said. “We’re going to be pretty busy.”

“Let him come, too,” Honey said. “Miss Trask will read to him, or Regan will take him out to his apartment over the stable.”

“Gee whiz, thanks, Honey,” Bobby said and struggled down from Mart’s shoulder.

“Mrs. Belden, if you don’t mind, Miss Trask said to
ask you if they could all stay for lunch. She said it would just be hot dogs. May they?”

“I think so. Trixie, take Bobby up to his room and change his shirt, please. It seems as though the Belden children are always eating at your house, Honey.”

“We come here more often, Mrs. Belden. Mother has all your recipes in a box at home, but she says Cook never makes them taste as good as you do.”

“If I looked as pretty as your mother does,” Mrs. Belden answered, “I’d never put a foot inside the kitchen.”

“There isn’t a movie actress who can hold a candle to you, Moms,” Mart said and kissed her.

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” his mother said, blushing. “Try to be home by four o’clock, all of you. Your father will be here then. He’s going to bring that film we took at home on Christmas when you were at the dude ranch.”

“We’ll try to be on time, Moms. Do you know,” Trixie put her arm around her mother, “that was one thing we could hardly stand—being away from Crabapple Farm at Christmas.”

At the Manor House Regan met Bobby and took him by the hand to go to his apartment.

“Tell me my riddle,” Bobby begged. “You always tell me good riddles.”

“What has three keys but can’t open locks?” Regan asked, his freckled face amused.

“That’s a hard one,” Bobby said. “It’s not my skate key … it’s not our door key … what’s the answer, Regan?”

“A zoo. It has a
monkey
, a
donkey
, and a
turkey
,” Regan said. “Tell the other kids good-by, Bobby.”

Honey led the Bob-Whites up the two flights of stairs to the attic. They had to go through a trap door to get into the room over the library. Cobwebbed boxes and furniture were stacked around the room. One light hung from the ceiling, sending weird shadows into all corners.

Trixie tingled with excitement.
It’s the same setting, almost exactly
, she thought,
as the one in
Kidnaped for Ransom.

“I’ve never been inside this room before,” Honey said. “I think most of the things must have been here when Daddy bought the house.”

“Just look at this table!” Mart exclaimed. “It’s cherry or I’ll miss my guess. This is valuable, Honey, and here’s its twin! Do you think your mother meant that we could have anything in this room?”

“That’s what she told me,” Honey answered.

Mart, excited, carried the two tables through the trap door to the hall. “This is the first installment,” he said.

Trixie’s head was deep in a big trunk she pulled open. “It’s full of old costumes,” she said. “The little theater in Sleepyside will pay a lot of money for these or … say, I think we’d better keep them and rent them to
all
the drama groups. We’d make more money that way. Look at this, what do you suppose it opens?”

Trixie held up a small key. There was a tag attached to it. “This is queer,” she said and turned the tag face up so they could see it. On it were these little acrobatic figures in different postures:

“Do you suppose it says something?” Honey picked up the key and its tag and took it over under the light. “Did you ever see anything like this before?” she asked.

“It’s probably some kind of a code,” Mart said. “It’s neat. I’ll bet some kid did that a long time ago.”

“Right,” Jim said. “More than likely, though, it doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Maybe not,” Trixie agreed, then slipped it in the pocket of her sweater. “What are you making such a fuss about, Brian?”

Brian had found an old sword, and rubbed it against his blue jeans to brush off the dust.

“Say, Jim, take a look at this,” he said. “Could these be gold ornaments on the hilt?”

“Why don’t you ask me?” Mart asked. “I’m an authority on swords. It’s a samurai. There should be a dagger to match. They come in pairs.”

The boys hunted around on the floor. “Here it is! It’s a beauty!”

“The samurai were military guards at the mikado’s palace way back in feudal days in Japan,” Mart recited, sure of his subject. “They were the only ones allowed to wear the two swords.”

“They had a pleasant way of using them,” Jim said.

“They did,” Mart agreed. “When the honor of a samurai was questioned, even ever so faintly, he had the great privilege of plunging this short dagger into his abdomen to end his life.”

“Then his best friend, who bent over watching to see that he did the job neatly,” said Brian, “would slice off his head with this long sword to be sure the dagger did its work.”

“Don’t talk about things like that,” Honey said, her face white. “It makes me sick. Let’s leave these old swords here. Nobody will want them.”

“You’re wrong, Honey,” Brian said. “When I went to New York with Dad before Christmas I saw a Japanese sword in the gift department of a store. It wasn’t as old as this one … at least I don’t think it was … but the price on it was over a hundred dollars.”

“I still don’t like them,” Honey said.

“It’s history, though, Honey,” Trixie said. “Whoopee, look at these old masks! This one—why, I believe it’s a Garuda bird. Do you remember that Balinese dance we saw on TV out at the ranch?”

Mart picked up the mask, ran his hand down the long beak of the Garuda bird, with its serrated teeth. “I remember,” he said. “A man wore one in the Balinese shadow play. Someone who lived here before must have traveled in the Far East and picked up these masks and swords.”

Just then Celia, the Wheelers’ pretty maid who had married Tom, the chauffeur, pushed a tray ahead of herself through the trap door. “Mrs. Wheeler said to bring these sandwiches up to you,” she said and put a tray of hot dogs on an old trunk.

“Tom is bringing the milk,” she added. “Bobby is
having his lunch with Regan. If you need anything more,” she said to Jim, “just come down to the kitchen.”

After they had finished their sandwiches they selected the articles they wanted to use.

“Let’s carry this loot over to the clubhouse and get busy right away,” Mart said enthusiastically. “Diana, you and Trixie can start to sand one of the gate-leg tables when we get there. If they’re really cherry, we’ll get a neat price for them. Come on, girls. Each one take a cooky jar. Jim, a table for you, and you, Brian, the mirror. Wait till you see the mirror with a new coat of gilt on the frame. I’ll take the Indian.”

Aside from the two gate-leg tables they took a tobacco shop Indian figure with some of its original paint, a Windsor armchair, a table that might turn out to be a Pembroke, a framed mirror, a brass coal hod, two brown crackled cooky jars, and a model of an old whaling ship, the
Oswego of Hudson
.

They stopped in the Manor House living-room to thank Mrs. Wheeler.

“Oh, that old stuff,” she said. “You’ll never find anyone who will want to buy it.”

“You’d be surprised, Mrs. Wheeler,” Mart said. “I’d like to place a bet that you buy one of your own things back when you see our show.”

“That would surprise me very much,” she said, laughing. “Is that an old Bennington jar you are carrying, Diana? I wonder where it came from.”