The Mysterious Code

lanterns in the back of the tin
peddler’s cart. “My little brothers would be thrilled to have a toy like that.”
    “It would last about
ten minutes with Bobby,” Trixie said. “Now take this doll buggy, Di, and put it
next on the shelf. Isn’t it priceless? The original flowered lining is still in
it, and it rolls. See?” Trixie pushed the high, carved, wooden baby carriage
along the shelf to stand next to the old peddler’s cart.
    “They are ours, too,
to sell,” Trixie added. “They aren’t just to exhibit. Tad said the woman gave
them to him for us to sell.”
    “There surely has
been a change in Tad,” Diana said. “Remember what a goon he used to be?”
    “Maybe we just
thought so. Maybe ice were the goons, not Tad,” Trixie said.
    “That’s what Spider
seemed to think, didn’t he?” Honey asked. “I like Tad now. I like him very
much.”
    “I guess we all do,”
Trixie agreed. “Shall we put some of Mrs. Vanderpoel’s silver on this other
shelf?”
    “No,” Honey said.
“It isn’t for sale. Let’s try to keep all the things for sale on one side of
the room, and the ones for exhibiting on the other side. That way, we won t be
in danger of selling anything that doesn’t belong to us.”
    Celia and Mrs.
Bruger had finished cleaning the main showroom and had moved on behind the
partition to put the back room in better order.
    Regan and Brian and
Mart arrived in the pickup truck and unloaded the first group of antiques for
the exhibit side of the room.
    The girls just had
to leave their work to admire the beautiful old mahogany three-tiered table,
the oak Bible box with its lining of blue Williamsburg paper, the pine settle
and bookrest, and Mrs. Vanderpoel’s little old ebony melodeon.
    “Do you know what
Mrs. Vanderpoel did?” Brian asked as he and Regan settled die melodeon in
place. “She let us take that black walnut chest that stands in her living room.
She called it a kas or schrank. Take a look at it, Trixie....
Wait, we’ll bring it in next”
    Trixie well knew
what the big Holland Dutch chest looked like. She knew, too, that it was Mrs.
Vanderpoel’s dearest treasure.
    On top of die chest
the girls arranged the George III silver they had polished the night Bull
Thompson had been captured. The old tankards and salvers shone against the
waxed walnut background.
    Tom arrived then
with a second load of furniture from the clubhouse. Mr. Maypenny, drawn into
service, had helped him load them. Now the boys —Brian, Jim, and Mart—arrayed
them on the sale side of the room. There were the cherry gateleg tables that
were Mart’s pride, the wooden Indian from the Wheelers’ attic, the gilt mirror
which stood on its base, die Pembroke table, some ladder-back chairs that came
from Mrs. Vanderpoel’s lean-to kitchen, several odds and ends of wall whatnots,
and some painted chairs.
    “Mrs. Wheeler told
me to take this, and not to put it in anyone’s hands but yours,” Tom said. He
handed the doll trunk to Trixie.
    “It’s the gold
musical jewel box!” Trixie cried, delighted. “I haven’t seen it for weeks.
Isn’t it the most beautiful thing you ever saw?” Carefully Trixie took it from
the small doll trunk and set it, for exhibit, on top of the Chippendale
three-tiered table, just inside the front window.
    “It almost knocks
your eyes out, doesn’t it?” Mart asked.
    “Yes, and we’d never
have had it, either,” Diana said, “if Trixie hadn’t snooped till she found it
hidden in the chimney.”
    “I don’t like the
word ‘snooped,’ ” Trixie said indignantly. “Oh, here are the Hakaito brothers
with their swords and things. Isn’t this the most fun in the whole world?
Jeepers, I told them I’d have some Japanese lanterns hung in the comer where
they are going to put their Oriental display. Here’s the ladder. Help me, will
you please, Jim?”
    Jim brought the
ladder to the comer just as the Hakaito brothers came in, smiling, their arms
full of carefully wrapped tissue bundles.
    “We hang lanterns,”
Oto said. “Later, when exhibit is in place. Now we work. You see later.” He
adjusted a tall Japanese screen to close off the corner.
    Jim turned around,
held out his hands, palms up, and shrugged. “That’s that,” he said.
    While they had been
talking, Diana and Honey had been busy. In the comer opposite the one where the
Japanese were working, on the sales side, they hung two lengths of clothesline.
To these they pinned the aprons they had