The Mysterious Code

white-capped,
pink-cheeked Dutch women around her bed.
    Visions of them
followed Trixie even into her dreams. When suddenly she was awakened by a
strange, muffled noise, she was whisked from the seventeenth century into the
present.
    There the noise was
again—something scraping.
    Trixie propped her
elbow on her pillow and listened. The noise came from the direction of the
lean-to kitchen. Hastily, but quietly, Trixie slipped her feet into loafers,
pulled the big robe around her, and, without having to turn on the light,
slipped through the dining room into the dark kitchen.
    There was that noise
again. A window lifted perhaps? Slowly, stealthily, Trixie opened the door to
the lean-to kitchen just a crack.
    The man inside saw
her and ran across the room, knocking pans here and there, making a frightful
noise in his eagerness to get back through the window.
    “Get your gun!”
Trixie called to Mrs. Vanderpoel. “A burglar! He'll get away!”
    Mrs. Vanderpoel came
running, shouting at the top of her voice, “Hands up! Ill shoot! Stand back,
Trixie. Get behind me. Hands up, you thief!”
    The man, confused,
struck his head on the side of the window, trying to get through, and, dazed
for a second, hesitated, then plunged... right into the arms of Tad Webster!
    “I’ve got him!” Tad
called. “Get a rope, Trixie! Help me tie him up!”
    Little Mrs.
Vanderpoel hurried with a clothesline, and Trixie ran out the door with it to
where the man, held fast in Tad’s arms, struggled to get away. She looped the
rope around his arms while Tad held them pressed against the man’s back. Then
they bound the burglar’s legs fast.
    “There you are!” Tad
said. “Now we’ll see who you are!” He pulled the mask from the man’s face.
    It wasn’t a man at
all, but a boy not much older than Tad.
    “It’s the lad who
shoveled my walks!” Mrs. Vanderpoel said. “Maybe he just came to collect for
his work.”
    “At this time of the
night?” Tad asked. “And masked? No, ma’am. I know him. It’s Bull Thompson.”
    The boy growled at
Tad, “I’ll get you for this!”
    “That voice,” Trixie
said. “Why, he’s one of the gang who stole the desk. I’m sure I remember his
voice. Where did you know him, Tad?”
    “He was a member of
the Hawks,” Tad said, “but not for long. He sure didn’t fit into our club.
    He only joined it to
get hold of our funds. He ran off with eleven dollars, too. I haven’t seen him
for months. I thought he’d moved out of Sleepyside. His uncle, Snipe Thompson,
disappeared, and I thought Bull went with him. Snipe had a bookie joint over on
Hawthorne Street... did time for it. Say, Trixie, call the sergeant at the
police station. Tell him to find Spider and send him out here in the patrol
car. It’ll be reform school for you this time, Bull, or I’ll miss my guess.”
    Bull only snarled
his answer.
    Spider came with
Sergeant Molinson, the man who had helped to rescue Trixie and Mart from the
trailer when they had been kidnapped. “It’s you, again, poison!” the sergeant
said to Trixie. “Every time I see you it means trouble.”
    “Don’t you say one
word against that girl,” Mrs. Vanderpoel warned him, “or Tad, either. I suppose
Spider told you to keep a watch, whether I wanted you to or not,” she said to
Tad. “And you, Sergeant, those kids did a better job on that crook than you
policemen could have done.”
    “Yeah,” Sergeant
Molinson agreed, “maybe we ought to put ’em on the squad. Come on now, Bull.
Into the patrol car with you. We’ll have some questions to ask you—been
roughhousing the school and stealing from desks and lockers, haven’t you?”
    “Prove it!” Bull
sneered.
    “We will; don’t
worry,” Spider said. “We’ll get the rest of your gang, too. Do you want to tell
us who they are? Is your Uncle Snipe in on it? Spill it, Bull.”
    “Naw,” Bull said.
“No smart aleck cop is ever goin’ to get that out of me. I don’t rat on pals.”

“This
Can’t Be Me!” • 12
     
    I can surely breathe easier,”
Mrs. Belden told Trixie, “when I know that Mrs. Vanderpoel’s burglar has been
caught. Do you see these gray hairs on my temples?” Mrs. Belden pushed back her
hair. “You put them there, Trixie. I’ve worried more about you than all three
of the boys, though I’ve had plenty of occasions to be concerned about them,
too, with all the situations they get involved in with you.”
    “It isn’t my fault
if mysterious things