The Mysterious Code

charmed,
the three girls sat and watched and listened until the flutelike tune fluttered
to a close.
    “It’s the most
beautiful music box!” Honey said.
    “And a jewel box,
too,” Trixie cried. “It opens!” She lifted the lid, and little drawers popped
out all around the inside edges.
    There’s something
here in one of the drawers!” Diana cried. “It’s a ring!”
    “Two rings!” Trixie
announced. “Two exquisite rings,” she added, awed.
    “This one is an
emerald,” Honey said and slipped it on her finger.
    “This one is a
ruby,” Diana said. “But it’s a man s ring!”
    I think we had
better take the jewel box downstairs and show it to your mother,” Trixie
declared solemnly.
     
    Mrs. Wheeler was
sitting at the piano in the music room, playing a well-known melody. She looked
up as the three excited girls burst into the room. Honey held the box in her
hands and extended it to her mother.
    “Don’t tell me
you’ve found a treasure in the attic,” Mrs. Wheeler said, smiling. “In all
mystery stories they always find treasures in the attic... why you did!” she exclaimed. “What is that lovely thing?”
    Honey wound the box,
set it tinkling, and put it on the piano. The dancing figures circled, their
tiny feet moving in exact time to the music.
    “It’s beautiful,” Mrs.
Wheeler said. “It is lovely enough to have been made by Cellini! You never
found that in the attic!”
    “We did!” Honey said. “Yesterday we found the key. It fits an old doll trunk. See the key
and the tag? The little figures were so mysterious Trixie couldn’t be satisfied
until she investigated it. Then we found that page in St. Nicholas magazine with the alphabet.”
    “I don’t believe
Scotland Yard could have done a better piece of detective work,” Honey’s mother
said.
    “Then the bricks
fell down, and we found the doll trunk,” Honey went on.
    “I’m sorry about the
bricks,” Trixie said. “Not only the doll trunk, but... Honey, open the music
box and show her what we found on the inside.”
    “This is serious,”
Mrs. Wheeler said when she saw the rings. “The box itself is priceless—and now
the rings! I don’t know what to think. Who could have put them in that
old doll trunk?”
    “Could it have been
the people who lived here before we came?” Honey asked.
    “That’s possible,”
her mother said. “That’s it, of course. I have the family’s number someplace.
Their name was Spencer. When their two daughters grew up and married, they went
to live in New York and we bought the Manor House. I’ll go and look for the
phone number in my desk.” When Mrs. Wheeler came back with her address book,
the girls, Honey holding the jewel box, went to the telephone room off the hall
to listen to the conversation.
    It seemed hard to
make Mrs. Spencer understand. Mrs. Wheeler took the musical jewel box from
Honey’s hands and described it in detail.
    “Are you sure?” Mrs.
Wheeler said. “But you built the house. No one lived here but you until we
bought it. It doesn’t belong in our family.”
    “That’s a mystery
for your detective agency,” she said to Honey and Trixie as she hung up the
receiver. “Mrs. Spencer never heard of the musical jewel box. She said neither
she nor her husband ever had ruby or emerald rings. She doesn’t even like emeralds!”
    “Maybe the police
have a record of the jewel box having been stolen,” Trixie suggested. “You
could call Sergeant Molinson and ask him.”
    “Go ahead, if you
know him,” Mrs. Wheeler said. “If I did, he’d hang up before he’d listen to
me,” Trixie said, smiling. “He doesn’t like amateur detectives at all, Mrs.
Wheeler.”
    “Then I’ll call
him,” Mrs. Wheeler said.
    She held the
receiver a short distance from her ear so the girls could hear the
conversation.
    “Don’t tell me those
kids are mixed up in another mystery,” the sergeant said. “What did you say
about jewels?”
    Mrs. Wheeler
described the jewel box and the rings. “The emerald ring is valuable, I know.
No one in our family ever saw the jewel box.”
    “Why don’t you call
the people who owned the place before you?” Sergeant Molinson asked.
    Patiently Mrs.
Wheeler told him she had done this, and that Mrs. Spencer never had heard of
the jewel box, either.
    “I called you to see
if it had ever been reported stolen,” she went on.
    “Hold the line,
please. I’ll look it up, Sergeant Molinson said. “I don’t remember