Research Holp

Notes for #7 The Mysterious Code © 1961, 2004
Page # Quote
5 Trixie: "Please get Jim and Brian from the kitchen." Mart: "They can't leave their jobs at lunch time."
7 Trixie: "After I told him (Mr. Stratton) the purpose of the club, he said, 'I don't think that purpose is enough to justify such an organization in the eyes of the members of the school board.'"
8 Brian: "There isn't a better policeman in Sleepyside than Spider or a better friend of the Bob-Whites of the Glen." Trixie: "Tad's (Webster) president of the Hawks."
11 Di: "He should know how the B.W.G.'s gave my parents a whole new set of values."
12 Di: "We're lots more of a family since my mother and father discharged the butler, the nurses for twin brothers and twin sisters, and half the maids.
15
  • Honey Wheeler, thirteen, lived with her parents and her adopted brother Jim, fifteen. Manor House was a huge estate with acres of beautiful rolling lawn, a bird sanctuary and game preserve, a private lake, riding horses, and many servants.
  • Diana Lynch, thirteen too, whose father had recently become a millionaire, lived in another large country estate. her twin brothers and sisters were much younger.
16 Trixie contributed five dollars a week which she earned helping her mother. Honey earned the same amount as Trixie by doing mending. Diana was paid to help look after her little brothers and sisters. Mart did all the odd jobs he could find around the neighborhood. Jim and Brian worked in the school cafeteria.
18 Diana's puzzled violet-blue eyes widened. She even mixed up one-syllable words.
19 Trixie usually did the talking because...well, because she was naturally chatty.
23 Mart: "She (Trixie) can get us into more trouble than a bunch of Kilkenny cats."
26 ……Mart said woefully, thinking of the four-poster bed in his room at home.
35 Jim: "We have a charge account at Wimpy's. Dad set it up for Honey and me in case of an emergency."
37 Spider's brother, Tad, fourteen, was a freshman at Sleepyside High. Their father and mother were dead and Spider had tried to take over their place with Tad. They (B.W.G.'s) didn't think Tad was really bad, but they did wish he would act his age.
39 Jim: "There you go wearing your Moll Dick badge again."
42 The movie was a stirring western. Honey, who was timid, and easily frightened.
51 Moms: "He (Mr. Belden) said he was sure he could arrange for you to use that storeroom the bank has for rent, the one just across the street from the clothing store. It's right on Main Street."
52 Diana: "So we can work on the used furniture, my daddy is going to give us an oil burner he used to use in the apartment over our garage." Trixie: "Jim thinks we should be careful to keep our rule: Earn everything we use for the club."
53 Honey: "Regan is going to run an electric cord out from the stable to the clubhouse."
57 Mrs. Belden: "He's (Mr. Belden) going to bring that film we took at home on Christmas when you were at the dude ranch."
58 Honey led the Bob-Whites up the two flights of stairs to the attic. They had to go through a trap door to get into the room over the library.
59 Trixie: "It's full of old costumes. The little theater in Sleepyside will pay a lot of money for these or, I think we'd better keep them and rent them to all the drama groups."
61 Trixie: "Look at these old masks! This one - why I believe it's a Garuda bird. Do you remember that Balinese dance we saw on TV out at the ranch?"
62
  • Aside from the two gate-leg tables they took a tobacco shop Indian figure with some of its original paint, a Windsor armchair, a table that might turn out to be a Pembroke, a framed mirror, a brass coal hod, two brown crackled cooky jars, and a model of an old whaling ship, the Oswego of Hudson.
  • Mart: "You'd be surprised, Mrs. Wheeler. I'd like to place a bet that you buy one of your own things back when you see our show."
73 On the lid (of the music box), under a garland of vines and arched trees, a little man and woman stood, dressed in court clothes of the time of Louis XVL.
74 She (Trixie) lifted the lid and little drawers popped out all around the inside edges. Trixie: "Two rings!" Honey: "This one is an emerald." Di: "This one is a ruby. But it's a man's ring."
75 Mrs. Wheeler: "It (jewelry box) is lovely enough to have been made by Cellini!" Honey: "Could it have been the people who lived here before we came?" Mrs. Wheeler: "I have the family's number someplace. Their name was Spencer."
76 Mrs. Wheeler: "But you built the house. No one lived here but you until we bought it."
77 Sgt. Molinson: "Try The Sleepyside Sun. The editor may remember something about it. He's owned the newspaper for thirty years."
78 Trixie: "Here's the number (of The Sun), Sleepyside nine-six-eight-0."
81 Mrs. Spencer: "They (Mr. and Mrs. Frayne) didn't have any children and often invited my little girls to come over to their house to play. Margaret, my older daughter, said Mrs. Frayne used to let them play with the box. They were only about ten and eight at the time. Mrs. Frayne went to Europe and the girls forgot to return the box."
82 Honey: "If the box belonged to Mrs. Frayne, they belong to Jim now." Jim: "For once Jonesy, my stepfather, was blamed for something he didn't do." Trixie: "You mean someone thought he stole the music box?"
83 Jim: "My mother told me that when Aunt Nell came back from Europe she couldn't find the box anyplace. She didn't mind the loss of the rings so very much, but Uncle Jim had given her the jewel box one time when they were in Paris. Jonesy used to ask my aunt and uncle for money, and, when my mother wouldn't let them give him any more, I guess Aunt Nell thought he stole the box."
84 Mart: "The acrobatic alphabet. We can use it for a secret code."
88 Brian: "Some girls just never seem to know their place." Trixie: "And some boys think they know everything."
91
  • Mrs. Belden: "It is possible that Mrs. Vanderpoel may let you exhibit some of her antiques. She's lived in that one place for ages. Her parents, and their parents, too, lived there before her."
  • Mrs. Vanderpoel's home was of yellow brick. The bricks were small handmade ones, brought over from Holland by early Dutch settlers. The house was surrounded by trees, on a wandering road that led from Glen Road back about a mile through the woods, to the fringe of the game preserve Mr. Wheeler had recently bought.
92 An old man (Brom) sat at the table, his face almost hidden in a bush of whiskers. Brom: "My name is Brom - just Brom. There's another name, too, but it's a long Dutch name." Mrs. Vanderpoel: "It's Vanderheidenbeck."
93 Brom: "When I get hungry I just rap at her door." "You've never heard of No-mah-ka-ta, the witch who lives on top of the highest mountain in the Catskills, have you? In the morning she lets the day out of the dark cave where it's been all night. At night No-mah-ka-ta puts the day back in the cave and everything is black as night. When No-mah-ka-ta wants light in the sky at night she hangs out a new moon."
95 Mrs. Vanderpoel: "I'm going to give you this small carved oak lap desk. It belonged to my father."
96 Trixie: "I've never seen him (Brom). I've heard of him though." Mrs. Vanderpoel: "He lives in a small cottage on the property that used to belong to his family, a very old Dutch family, older than my own. The wooded land is part of Mr. Wheeler's game preserve now."
102 Mr. Belden: "And you (Bob-Whites) want to be self-sufficient. I'm always telling your mother to let you manage your own affairs. I guess I'd better take some of my own advice."
104 Regan had installed an alarm system attached to a wire leading to his apartment over the stable at Manor House.
108 Spider: "You kids always high-hat Tad, for instance. All that business about helping kids on the other side of the world - try to do something for kids nearer home."
114 Brian: "Who are the Hakaito brothers?" Honey: "I think they have a truck garden on the other side of Sleepyside. And a produce shop in town. I'm pretty sure they are the ones who sell vegetables and fruits to our cook."
115 Jim: "Translated, Mart means you have enough to occupy your mind in this hemisphere. Keep out of Asia!" Trixie: "When something comes up, the rest of you just sit back and wonder and wish. I do something about it. Then you make fun of me."
116 Honey: "I'm a sleuth against my will." Mart: "The Reluctant Flatfoot."
117 Honey was exasperated with Trixie at times. She wished her friend wouldn't try to solve every mystery all by herself. Honey wanted to be the kind of detective who sat in an office and directed other people. She had no liking for danger.
119 Honey: "Diana's little twin brothers Larry and Terry have been at our house several times. Regan is crazy about children. He was raised in an orphanage, and I guess that's the reason." Trixie: "You remember Brom, the man with the whiskers who was at Mrs. Vanderpoel's house? He comes to see Bobby often. He made a willow whistle for Bobby that plays several notes. He carved queer little witches and goblins for Bobby too. You should hear some of the legends old Brom tells Bobby. If someone would put them in a book, I know the book would sell."
120 Trixie: "I can't write prose. Poems sing inside my head at times. It's when I try to put them down on paper that I fail."
121 Brian: "I'll ride Jupiter tonight." He longed to give Jupiter, Jim's big black gelding, a real workout. Jim: "Not tonight, Brian. He hasn't had enough exercise lately and he'll be too hard to manage. He's better with me than anyone else."
122
  • Mart: "All right, little dove of peace." He really liked Diana. She had a way of smoothing his feathers when they bristled.
  • Diana usually cut across the upper part of the Wheeler estate to get to her own home.
125 Mrs. Belden was tired or she would never have lost patience with any of her children, and least of all with Bobby.
129 The thing Jim liked best about Trixie was her spirit of adventure, her readiness to go anywhere any time and hold back, afraid, as so many girls did. Lately Jim had been noticing, too, that Trixie was a pretty girl.
130 Trixie: "I'm worried." Brian: Now don't go feminine on us."
135 Brian: "I like the way you called out to Jim, too, Trixie. Fine sister you are, you weren't concerned when I fell."
136 The boys forced the door of a log house that stood on the edge of a small clearing. Jim: "Mr. Maypenny must use this for a place to store provisions for the animals and birds. Sure thing, it's an old schoolhouse. Mr. Maypenny used to go to school here himself."
142 Trixie was across the room in a flash and up the narrow ladder in the closet that led to the bell. Once at the top, she swung the bell in its cradle.
153 Regan: "You must have wandered around in a circle. You're just at the edge of the pie-shaped clearing Mr. Maypenny owns. Right across there, not more than three hundred yards away, is Mr. Maypenny's house."
158 Mrs. Belden: "Last night someone tried to break into Mrs. Vanderpoel's home. She has real Dutch courage. She said she just took down her father's rifle and shouted…'If you come one step nearer I'll blow the top of your head off.'"
164 Spider came to the door (Mrs. Vanderpoel's). Tad was with him. Timidly the boy acknowledged the girls' warm greeting. They had promised Spider that they would be more cordial to Tad. Tad did not quite know what to make of it.
165 Tad looked longingly around the kitchen.
167 Mrs. Vanderpoel's long-sleeved challis nightgown and quilted robe made Trixie look exactly like one of the pictures of the Dutch women.
170 Tad: "I know him. It's Bull Thompson. He was a member of the Hawks, but not for long. He only joined it to get hold of our funds. He ran off with eleven dollars, too. His uncle, Snipe Thompson, disappeared and I thought Bull went with him. Snipe had a bookie joint over on Hawthorne Street."
171 Spider came with Sergeant Molinson, the man who had helped to rescue Trixie and Mart from the trailer when they had been kidnaped. Sgt. Molinson: "It's you again, poison!"
172 Mrs. Belden: "Do you see these gray hairs on my temples? You put them there, Trixie. I've worried more about you than all three of the boys."
173 Mrs. Belden: "Trixie, you'll be fourteen years old the first of May, and you've never been content to be a girl instead of a tomboy."
174 Trixie: "You'll be glad to know that Diana is having a dress-up party at her house Friday evening. It's sort of a pre-Valentine party." Mrs. Belden: "I'll meet you this afternoon and we'll find a dress for you—— shoes too." Trixie: "Heels?" Mrs. Belden: "As high as you want them."
175 Mrs. Belden: "I want you to have a pretty dress or two of your own. This is to be our expedition."
176 Mrs. Belden: "That's another thing we'll shop for—— a girdle." Trixie: "You've always told me not to grow up too soon." Mrs. Belden: "That was two years ago at least. I don't want you to grow up, but I'd like to be able to tell the difference between you and your brothers without straining my sight." In Sleepyside, Mrs. Belden and Trixie went into the Teen Town dress department.
177 Mrs. Belden: "Pink is pretty on blondes." Trixie: "Not on this strawberry blonde." Trixie wandered over to the Young Flair shop.
183 Trixie: "It's an orchid! A white one—— see, Moms—— on a red satin heart." Excitedly she took the little card out of the envelope and read: Dear Moll Dick: Is this your first orchid? I hope so. See you tonight. Jim.
184 Trixie: "How can I possibly ever dance in high heels?" Mrs. Belden: "You'll be dancing on air. You won't notice the heels." Jim: "Hi, Cinderella! Some dress! You smell wonderful, too."
186
  • Trixie: "The orchid is super, Jim. Thanks!" Jim: "Trade it for a dance."
  • After Mrs. Vanderpoel had heard about Spider's attempt to make a home for Tad, she told Trixie, "I need a boy around this house. I'm going to ask them if they'd like to come and live with me." For a nominal rental, they moved to Mrs. Vanderpoel's house.
  • At the Valentine party Tad danced with Trixie.
187
  • Jim came up then with Cokes and hamburgers for Trixie and himself. "I should have brought one for you," he said to Tad. Tad jumped up from the chair where he had been talking to Trixie. "I'll get it myself."
  • Jim: "Why didn't you tell me you could dance like a feather?" Trixie: "Mart didn't think so when I was dancing with him. He said I punctured his toes with my high heels."
188 Trixie followed Jim to the seat in front of the window. They could see down the hill toward the Manor House.
190 Tad, eager to help, seemed to be everywhere.
193 Jim: "It isn't a dog tag at all. It's the number of an automobile."
196 Honey: "Just try to remember, Trixie Belden, that we are all members of the Bob-Whites of the Glen. If you know something about that robbery that the rest of us don't know, you'd better tell us." Diana: "Yes, it seems to me you're getting so you think you know everything, and want to do everything yourself. You're not even any fun any more."
198 Oto: "Hakaito brothers have swords. We find them in pawnshop in White Plains."
203 Trixie: "Did he tell you what the car looked like—— the man at the Bureau?" Sgt. Molinson: "It was a blue and white sedan. If you can make anything out of that car let us know, will you? Maybe we should have taken Mrs. Vanderpoel's suggestion after all and added you to our squad."
212 So Trixie stood in the middle of the floor and sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Her voice was true, and she did fairly well until she came to the high notes. Her voice cracked and failed.
213 Diana, blushing to the ends of her finger tips, leaned over and brushed Mart's cheek with a kiss.
216 Trixie: "What about Snipe?" Tom: "He's back at that bookie business on Hawthorne Street.
217 Tom: "I think he's just out of prison after serving time for robbery."
221 Celia: "Your (Diana) mother is sending Mrs. Bruger, your cleaning woman."
222 Diana: "There surely has been a change in Tad. Remember what a goon he used to be?" Trixie: "Maybe we just thought so. Maybe we were the goons, not Tad."
237 Brom: "Believe it or not. I've been tramping these woods for seventy years." Jim: "But why on earth didn't you just give it back to us at the clubhouse or at Mrs. Vanderpoel's house, or Crabapple Farm?" Brom: "Because I live not five hundred feet from the old schoolhouse."
244 Trixie: "How did you happen to get your jalopy out without anyone hearing it, Brian?" Brian: "I left it down the road, opposite the driveway." Trixie: "That means you intended to go into town all the time. Did you too, Jim? I like that! You weren't going to say a thing to me about it." Jim: "We thought you'd been in enough danger."
245 Spider: "I thought some of the Bob-Whites would be showing up. I have the key to the building right next to the showroom."
257 At home in the Belden kitchen, Trixie, Honey, Diana, Jim, Brian, and Mart counted the money. It amounted to $763.94!