The Mysterious Code

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 said.
    So Brian and Jim
took the swords down from the closet wall where they had hung them. The
Japanese 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 said, bowing again.
    “He my brother
Kasyo. We 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 honorable father who
live in that city very proud of us.”
    “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 drive
off. We thought that 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. “We 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 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 helped to give him pneumonia?”
    “Phewwww! We’ve been
trying,” Mart said.