The Mysterious Code

before
saying anything to Mrs. Vanderpoel about it.
    “Did you see
anything of that boy who was shoveling my walks when you were here last time?”
Mrs. Vanderpoel asked curiously.
    “No,” Trixie
answered. “Why do you ask, Mrs. Vanderpoel?”
    “It’s the first time
anyone ever worked for me and ran off without waiting to be paid,” Mrs.
Vanderpoel said. “I never saw him before he stopped and asked for work. Oh,
well, he’ll stop and ask for his pay, too, I guess.”
    “I wonder,” Trixie
said to herself on the way home, “I wonder if that boy had anything to do with
the desk. I just wonder.”
     
    In the clubhouse
after school, they all worked hard getting ready for the show. The oil heater
kept them cozy and warm, and the new electric lights made it possible to work
after dark. Also, Regan had installed an alarm system attached to a wire
leading to his apartment over the stable at Manor House. It hadn’t buzzed once,
and there had been no disturbance since the night the two men were trying to
look into the clubhouse.
    “It must have been
the same ones who stole the lap desk,” Honey said. “Do you think we’ll ever be
able to find out anything more about that or get the desk back?”
    “Not unless we try a
lot harder than we’ve been trying,” Trixie said and told what Mrs. Vander-poel
had told her about the boy who ran off without being paid.
    “He might have been
one of them,” Jim said thoughtfully. “He was, of course. Brian and I have tried
to locate Spider half a dozen times to ask him about it. We haven’t been able
to find him.”
    “That seems
strange,” Trixie said, worried. “It’s almost as though he’s trying to keep out
of our way.”
    “Why would he want
to do that?” Diana asked.
    “He’s been acting so
strangely lately,” Trixie said.
    The next day,
instead of meeting the others in the school cafeteria for lunch, Trixie started
out to try to find Spider. Until they could discover who the thieves were,
everything they had in the clubhouse was in danger.
    Trixie’s intuition
led her directly to where Spider was having a break for lunch, at Wimpy’s
Diner, where they had seen him the night of die school board meeting. Trixie
climbed up on a stool next to Spider and nudged his arm.
    “Hello, there,”
Spider said. “How’s the head of the Intelligence Department today?”
    “Spider,” Trixie
said seriously, ignoring his sarcasm, “we’re having trouble, the Bob-Whites
are. Someone was looking into the clubhouse one night. We had been having a
meeting. They must have waited till they saw us leave, then tried to get in one
of the windows.”
    “How did you know?”
Spider asked.
    “I went back
afterward and saw them leaving,” Trixie told him.
    “Did you recognize
any of them?” Spider asked anxiously.
    “No, but that isn’t
all.” She told him about the masked men who dumped Bobby into the snow and
stole the desk.
    “What do you want me
to do about it?” Spider asked. “I think you might as well forget it.”
    Trixie, amazed at
his attitude, insisted, “We can't forget it, Spider. They’ll keep on
doing things like that.”
    “It was probably
some kids playing a trick on you, and now they’re afraid to return it. We find
that all the time,” Spider said. “The desk will turn up one of these days in
some out-of-the-way corner where they’ve hidden it.”
    “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 be bothered by one more thing,” Trixie said vehemently. “I
don’t understand you, Spider. I’m going to march myself right down to the
police station and report it to them right 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