The Mysterious Code

what
Tom said to me just before he left last night?” she asked her mother.
    “No. I didn’t go out
to the car. What was it?”
    “I told you that
Sergeant Molinson told us the thieves used a stolen blue and white car to make
their getaway from our clubhouse that night, didn’t I?”
    “Yes, you did, and
Mart told me the sergeant told you pretty emphatically to stay out of
their business,” Mrs. Belden said. “I hope you’ll take his advice.”
    “He’s a terrible
sourpuss,” Trixie said. “I can at least call Spider over at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s
house and tell him. He doesn’t go to work till about ten o’clock.”
    So Trixie called
Spider.
    When she came back
from the telephone, her face was serious.
    “Spider said he
knows Sergeant Molinson won’t try to do anything about Snipe Thompson,” she
said. “At least not until he has more evidence.”
    “With the antique
show tomorrow, why don’t you forget about Snipe?” Mart said. “We got the desk
back and the swords back. Now let’s forget all about it!”
    “Mart is right,” Mr.
Belden said as he put his coffee cup on the table. “There hasn’t been a robbery
on Main Street for fifty years—oh, maybe shoplifters in the stores, but that
goes on all the time.”
    “Maybe this will worry you, then,” Trixie said. “Spider can’t be on the job tonight because
he has late duty at his intersection. He said he’d go over to the showroom on
his own time after eleven o’clock.”
    “Spider doesn’t need
to go at all,” Mr. Belden said, “and he knows it. He’s only doing it because of
his interest in the Bob-Whites. The regular patrolman will be on duty, and that
should be enough protection.”
    Trixie’s face fell.
“Doesn’t anyone feel any responsibility?” she asked.
    “I, for one, am not
going to give it another thought,” Brian said. “Tom and Regan will be here any
minute with the station wagon and pickup truck. I’m going to finish my
breakfast and be ready when they come.”
    “That’s an excellent
idea,” Mr. Belden said.
    “Honey and Di are
coming with them,” Trixie said. “Tom will go with us to the clubhouse to get a
load of things there and then take us to the showroom.”
    “Here they come
now!” Bobby shouted, peering from his place at the table. “Terry and Larry
aren’t with him. Can I go to their house, Moms? And can we holp with the
andteeks?”
    “Later in the day
maybe, Bobby, if the sun comes out and the day is warm. Please try to say may
I’ instead of ‘can I,’ will you?”
    Bobby hid his head.
“I don’t get to holp with the show at all,” he said.
    “I know what we’ll
do this afternoon,” Mr. Belden told Bobby. “If it’s a warm day, I’ll go over
and get the boys at the Lynches’, and we’ll all go to Sleepyside and distribute
the handbills for the Bob-Whites.”
    “That will be
super!” Trixie said and hugged her little brother. “That will be the biggest
’holp’ of all ”
    There was good, hard
work to do in the showroom before the girls could even begin to decorate it for
the show. The windows were dusty. The floor needed to be cleaned. There was
dust everywhere. It would take dozens of pails of water and detergent to make
the room presentable. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before,” Trixie
said.
    It all looked pretty
hopeless till Tom arrived with his wife. “Mrs. Wheeler said I could help you,”
Celia said, and she took the mop out of Trixie’s hands. “Your mother is sending
Mrs. Bruger, your cleaning woman,” she told Diana. “We’ll soon have the place
looking like something. You girls just go ahead and put papers on the shelves
and arrange everything.”
    Honey had brought a
roll of flowered shelf edging, and the girls dusted the shelves, tacked the
edging in place with thumbtacks, and then covered the shelves with fresh white
paper.
    Along the shelves
they arranged a group of duck decoys Tad had brought them. They had belonged to
the father of one of the Hawks. When Tad told him about the show, he donated
them.
    “The ducks look as
though they were alive,” Trixie said.
    “Yes, wasn’t it
swell of Tad?” Honey asked. “The wooden toys he got for us can go on the next
shelf,” she went on. “Hand me that old tin peddler’s cart, Di, please. There!
Doesn’t that look marvelous? Look at all the little tin pans and bowls he has
for sale in his cart”
    “And the lanterns,”
Di said as she hung a cluster of miniature tin