The Mysterious Code

library at study period. When he
did, she took the metal disk from her pocket, turned it numbered side up, and
asked, “What is this, Jim, a dog tag? Did it come off of Patch’s collar? It
doesn’t belong to Reddy.”
    “One thing at a
time, Trixie,” Jim said. “It isn’t Patch’s tag. It isn’t a dog tag at all. It’s
the number of an automobile.”
    “An automobile?”
Trixie asked excitedly. “Then it is a clue. It belongs to one of the crooks who
stole the swords from the clubhouse!”
    “What are you
talking about?” Jim asked, feeling more and more confused.
    “The night of the
robbery at the clubhouse,” Trixie said as she rubbed the disk to show the
number better, “I found this on the ground outside.”
    “Why didn’t you show
it to someone before?” Jim asked, exasperated. “I wish you wouldn’t try to do
so many things on your own. If the police had had it, they might have been able
to trace the car long before this.”
    “Don’t be mad at me,
Jim. I didn’t know it had anything to do with the car the thieves used.”
    “You could have
tried to find out what it was before this. Come on, let’s go and use the public
telephone.”
    “You aren’t going to
call the police and give them my clue, are you, Jim?” Trixie asked.
    “It isn’t your clue, Trixie, and the police are sure enough going to have to know about this
key-ring tag. I’m going to call the Motor Registration Bureau over at the
county seat and see if they can tell me who owns the car with this number.”
    Meekly Trixie
followed Jim out into the hall and listened while he called.
    She heard him ask
for information, then listen to the answer. “I have a good, legitimate reason
for wanting to know it,” she heard Jim say.
    When he hung up the
telephone, however, she could tell from the look on his face that he hadn’t
been given the information.
    “They say they never
give it over the telephone,” Jim said, “only to insurance companies and the
police.”
    “Then we’ll just
have to go and see Sergeant Molinson after school,” Trixie said.
    “You don’t have to go,”
Jim said. “I can go.”
    “Like fun you will,”
Trixie said. “It’s my clue, and if you think for one minute, Jim Frayne,
that you’re going there without me—”
    “Calm down, calm
down, smooth your hair back, Trixie,” Jim said. “I just thought you’d have to
help your mother or do some work at the club.”
    “There isn’t
anything I have to do to help Moms, and most of the work is done at the club,”
Trixie said.
    “Come along, then,”
Jim said.
    But it wasn’t that
easy. When Jim and Trixie told the rest of the B.W.G.’s they were going to do
an errand in town right after school, Mart became suspicious.
    “It’s another one of
Trixie’s ‘cases,’ as she calls them,” Mart said. “I have another name
for them.”
    “It’ll be a big word
no one can understand,” Trixie said.
    “Just try to
remember, Trixie Belden,” Honey said, “that we are all members of the
Bob-Whites of the Glen. If you know something about that robbery that the rest
of us don’t know, you’d better tell us.”
    “Yes,” Diana said,
“it seems to me you’re getting so you think you know everything and want to do
everything yourself. You’re not even any fun anymore.”
    “I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” Trixie said, perplexed.
    “We re talking about
just what it is you have to do after school tonight that you can’t tell the
rest of us,” Mart said. “Spill it, Trixie.”
    “If you are all
going to be mad at me, I might just as well tell you,” Trixie said. “It’s just
that I found this tag the night of the fire. I thought it was a dog tag and
that maybe it belonged to Patch. Jim says it’s a key-ring tag and that probably
this number on it will tell us who owned the car the thieves made off in. We
were going down to the police station to have them call the Motor Registration
Bureau for information.”
    “Then we’ll just go
right along with you,” Mart said. “We wouldn’t want to deprive you of our
company, would we?” he asked the other B.W.G.’s.
    “We wouldn’t think
of it,” they chorused.
    “We won’t be taking
the bus,” Diana said over her shoulder to the bus driver, who was holding the
door open.
    “You call Moms,”
Trixie said to Brian, “please. She’ll think everything is all right if you call her and tell her we’ll be a little late.”
    “Don’t bother to
call,”