The Mysterious Code

didn’t. In a flash she brushed past him on her
way to the other side of the room, dropping into his coat pocket a handful of
the paper tags she had been marking. At the top of each one, instead of the
price, was the Bob-White coded call for help:
     

     
    It was almost a
hopeless gesture. Jim would never find the SOS call in time. How could he?
    Utterly helpless,
Trixie watched Jim walk across the room, open the door, and leave.
    “Good thing for you,
you didn’t squeal!” the coarse voice from the back room whispered. “You’re a
smart cooky. Now bring back that carved desk the whiskered old gent stole from
us an’... what’d you say,” he asked the man with him. “Oh, yeah, the swords,
too. My frien’ here says it’s a matter of honor to get ’em both back, desk an
swords.”
    Painfully and
slowly, for she was almost fainting with fear, Trixie picked up the carved lap
desk and carried it to the back room. It was her first glimpse of Snipe. One
look at his vicious, unshaven face filled her with terror. He grabbed the desk
from her roughly, then commanded, “Go back and get the swords those Japs
had—an’ a couple more for good measure an’ hurry it up!”
    A lumpy, dirty bag
filled with silver and the jewel box was near the back door. The door was at
the far end of the back room. We couldn’t see that door from
upstairs, Trixie thought sadly. Jim and Brian and Spider can't see it
now. Everything we have is going to be stolen, and I'll—
    “Get goin, sister!”
Snipe ordered. “The swords!”
    Jim will never find
those paper squares, never in all the world ... they’ll just find my body somewhere...oh,
Moms! Daddy!
    Hopelessly Trixie
took the samurai swords from the wall. Slowly she went toward the back room.
Snipe stood inside the door, his greedy hands stretched out. “Now come with us,
sister,” he said. “We like your company.”
    “Reach for the sky!”
a sharp voice commanded from the alley door.
    Spider stood there,
his revolver covering Snipe and his accomplice.
    “Drop your gun!” he
ordered Snipe’s pal, who held the sawed-off shotgun aimed at Trixie.
    “Frisk ’em both!”
Spider said to Jim and Brian.
    Trixie, in the door,
dropped the samurai swords and, with an exultant cry, picked up the dropped
shotgun and thrust it into Jim’s hands. “Shoot ’em in the legs!” she shouted
hysterically. “Then they’ll never get away! Oh, Spider! Oh, Jim! Oh, Brian!”
Her knees buckled, and she dropped into a chair.
    Jim and Brian
quickly tied the arms of the two men. Spider s shrill whistle brought the
patrolman on the ran. He summoned the patrol car, and, when it came, the
trussed thieves were loaded into it.
    Where scarcely a
soul had been on the street a few moments before, a crowd milled. Brian and
Jim, and Trixie, too, who had recovered miraculously, restored the nearly
stolen articles to their places in the showroom.
    Then they watched
while Spider nailed bars across the back door.
    With a quick look
around, the trio went out the front door, locked it behind them, and crossed
the street to Brian’s jalopy.
    “I never want to
live through another half hour like that one,” Trixie said wearily. “Why couldn’t you see that I was trying to tell you something, Jim?”
    “I’m just dumb, I
guess, Trixie,” Jim said unhappily. “I thought you’d really flipped when you
kept talking about the price of the aprons.”
    “But I tried so hard
to let you know. Snipe held that gun on me all the time.”
    “Let’s not think of
that,” Brian said, clutching the wheel of his jalopy tightly.
    “I even tried to
tell you about that page in St. Nicholas magazine.” Trixie went on.
    “I know,” Jim said.
“That’s what made me wonder when I went back upstairs. It sounded so crazy.”
    “How did you finally
find out?” Trixie asked. “Did you find the SOS?”
    Did he?” Brian shouted.
“He pulled that bunch of price tags out of his pocket when he pulled out his
gloves. He hit the ceiling!”
    “Then we all hit the
stairs!” Jim added. "I’d like to get my hands on that Snipe Thompson!”
    “He’ll go to prison
now, for sure,” Trixie said. “Maybe he’ll stay there this time. Gee, I hope
Moms and Dad won’t be mad at me.”
    “They won’t be,”
Brian said. “They’re pretty swell!”
    The next day crowds
thronged the showroom from the opening hour until it closed. Every article on
the sale side of the room was sold, with orders for more.
    Mr. Stratton and