The Mystery off Old Telegraph Road

the mileage readings that Jim told her while Trixie spoke. Now she looked up from her notebook and turned to face Trixie in the backseat. “I know, Trix,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “I bet those forgers are operating out of the abandoned house Daddy bought. I bet that if we pried the plywood off the doors and windows, we’d find big piles of counterfeit money inside.”
    While everyone else laughed, Trixie shook her head soberly. “I thought about that, Honey. After all, the hedge where I found that bank note is just down the road from that abandoned house. But I looked at that house carefully right before I found the note. It’s sealed up tight as a drum. It’s just not a good bet.”
    “Oh, Trixie, I was just kidding,” Honey said. “You have no sense of humor about mysteries.”
    “We re almost to Mrs. Vanderpoel’s house,” Jim said, changing the subject to prevent Trixie’s being teased about her serious concern for mysteries. “Should we stop for a visit?”
    “Oh, yes, let’s do!” Honey exclaimed. “I haven’t seen her in ages.”
    “Besides,” Mart added, “the way the road to her house wanders around in the woods, we’d better find a place for an arrow about every ten feet, or somebody will be sure to get lost.”
    “Or think they’re lost,” Brian corrected. “It’s almost impossible to get really lost, since this is the only road, even though it does seem to wander aimlessly for a mile.”
    As if to prove Brian’s point, the road took a sharp curve, then another. Jim slowed the car to a snail’s pace, concentrating on the road and reading the odometer numbers to Honey after each curve.
    Rounding a final turn, the Bob-Whites saw the neat yellow brick house where Mrs. Vanderpoel lived. Jim pulled into the drive and shut off the car motor. As the sound of the motor died, Mrs. Vanderpoel appeared at the front door of the house. “I thought I heard a car coming up the road,” she called. “That sound is so rare out here that I can’t help but notice it. Come in, come in!” The Bob-Whites filed into the house, and Jim explained the errand that had brought them to the neighborhood and their decision to stop for a visit.
    “I’m so glad you did,” Mrs. Vanderpoel told him. “I just finished making a double batch of oatmeal cookies, as it happens. Would you like some?”
    “Yummy-yum!” Honey exclaimed. “Would we ever!
    “Mrs. Vanderpoel, I have never had the misfortune to visit you when there were not fresh cookies waiting for me. Is this a case of extrasensory perception on your part?” Mart asked, straight-faced.
    The old woman chuckled, her blue eyes crinkling and her rosy cheeks growing even rosier. “Now, Mart, don’t you go throwing your twenty-five-cent words at me,” she said cheerfully. “I don’t know a thing about extra-whatever-you-called-it, but I do know about cookies. I love to bake them, and I love to eat them, too.” She patted her ample stomach. “What with one thing and another, they never seem to go to waste, so I just keep making them.”
    “We’re glad you do, too, Mrs. Vanderpoel,” Trixie said. “Mart just means he appreciates your cookies going to his waist.”
    “Well, then, why don’t you all sit down at the dining-room table while I get us all some milk and cookies?” Mrs. Vanderpoel said, bustling off to the kitchen.
    “I’ll help you,” Honey said, following her. Brian, Mart, Jim, and Trixie all took places around the table. Trixie ran her hand across the gleaming wood. “I love this table. I love all of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s furniture, don’t you?”
    “It’s beautiful,” Jim agreed, looking around the room. “These things have all been in Mrs. Vanderpoel’s family for generations, and none of them seem to be any worse for being used, instead of roped off in a museum somewhere.”
    “Bless you, no,” Mrs. Vanderpoel said, walking in from the kitchen with a huge platter piled with fragrant oatmeal cookies. “This furniture was made in a time when people had big, busy families and no money to replace their furniture whenever the mood struck them. It was made to last and last. That’s something those so-called antique experts don’t seem to understand.” She set the platter firmly on the table, as if to prove her point about the sturdiness of her furniture.
    Honey had followed Mrs. Vanderpoel from the kitchen carrying a tray loaded with glasses of milk. She set one glass in front of each of her friends, then