The Mysterious Code

crooks stole from Bobby and me that day we were at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s
house,” Trixie said.
    The little old Dutch
woman, hearing her name, crossed the room.
    “I was showing Mr.
Brom the desk,” Trixie said. “We’d surely like to know who it was that brought
it to the old schoolhouse the night of the blizzard.” Brom’s face turned dull
red. He fidgeted and tried to turn away.
    “It’s no secret,”
Mrs. Vanderpoel said. “Brom did it.”
    “Jumpin’ jeepers
Jehoshaphat,” Mart said, drawing in his breath. “He did? How?”
    “I tracked that boy
down,” Brom said, “that no-good boy who was shovelin’ the walks that day an’
ran away without his pay.”
    “Brom was sure he
had something to do with stealing that desk,” Mrs. Vanderpoel explained. “So he
shadowed the poolrooms in town till he saw the boy.”
    “Then I followed him
to where he lived,” Brom said and added triumphantly, “an’ there was that desk.
I saw it through the window of his house, settin’ right there on a table as big
as life!”
    Jim and Honey and
Brian joined the group, hearing bits of the conversation.
    “How on earth did
you ever get it out of his house?” Jim asked.
    “Stole it back!” the
old man said, laughing and slapping his sides. “He didn’t know what hit him! I
just opened the door, went up back of him, buckled his knees, knocked him down,
took the desk, and hightailed out of there!”
    “He just told me
about it a short time ago,” Mrs. Vanderpoel said. “He's smart as a fox, Brom
is, isn’t he?” she asked Trixie.
    “Yes... yes, he is,”
Trixie agreed enthusiastically, then looked at Jim, her forehead wrinkled in
puzzlement.
    “That doesn’t tell
the whole story,” she said. “How did it ever get outside that schoolhouse the
night of the blizzard? That's still a problem for the Belden-Wheeler Detective
Agency to try to solve.”
    “Wasn’t no problem
at all,” Brom said. “I did that, too.”
    “You went out in
that blizzard to leave that desk at the schoolhouse?” Trixie asked. “That’s
pretty hard to believe.”
    “Believe it or not,”
the old man said with spirit, “I’ve been trampin’ those woods for seventy
years, winter and summer, and I know ’em better than a fox or a rabbit”
    “That may even be
so,” Jim said, scratching his head, “but why on earth didn’t you just give it
back to us at the clubhouse, or at Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house, or at Crabapple
Farm?”
    “Because I live not
five hundred feet from the old schoolhouse,” Brom said.
    “You just stop
askin’ any more questions, all of you. You got your desk back, didn’t you?”
Mrs. Vanderpoel said. “Getting an old man all stirred up just because he set
that trap that Reddy got caught in, and then wanted to make it up to Bobby !
Bunch of busybodies!” the old woman said scornfully.
    “Now, now,” Brom
said, “let’s be friends. I shouldn’t have set that trap, and you know it. Just
tryin to earn a little money gatherin’ fox pelts. I should have thought of a
dog getting' caught Desk looks mighty pretty settin' there,” Brom said, “and
all the rest of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s things. Ain’t none of them, even the foreign
things, any prettier. Would you like to put this on top of the desk, Trixie?”
    Brom fumbled in the
big pocket of his overcoat and brought out a child’s antique bank. An iron man
sat in an iron chair with his iron hand held out in front of him, palm up. Brom
dropped a penny in the out-stretched hand. The iron man nodded his thanks,
reached around with his iron hand, and dropped the penny in a money slot.
    “It’s marvelous!”
Trixie cried. “It’s darling, and so are you!” she said and gave the old
gentleman a big hug.
    His face grew red,
but he smiled from ear to ear and patted Trixie’s arm.
    “Sell the bank,” he
said. “It’s for all those little kids whore hungry.”
     
    When Spider had
taken Mrs. Vanderpoel and Brom away, a sober-faced group of young people went
back to their work.
    “If we never hear another word of thanks for what we’ve done,” Trixie said, “I’d do all the
work over again a dozen times just to get to know people like Brom and Mrs.
Vanderpoel and Oto and Kasyo.”
    “You said it!” Mart
agreed. “And Spider and Tad, too.”
    “And that goes for
Tom and Regan and Celia and Mrs. Bruger and Mr. Maypenny and everyone else who
has helped us... all the people who let us take their antiques... and our
parents .. Trixie