A SMASHING SET
Amanda Peabody had won first serve and her choice of courts. Billie
Bradley was handicapped not only by her knee--which was beginning to
pain rather severely--but by the fact that the sun was in her eyes.
As Amanda slowly raised her racket for the serve, there was a pleased
look on her face. She, too, had noticed Billie’s limp and her loss in
speed.
“Ready!” she called.
The ball floated over the net lazily. It looked like an easy one, but
Billie knew that serve of old. The ball had a tantalizing habit of
stopping far short of that part of the court where you expected it.
Billie was ready and returned the ball neatly just over the net. Amanda
raced for it, caught it with a clever, backhand stroke, and dropped it
over the net. Billie swung at it viciously and sent it sailing over
Amanda’s head for her first point.
“That was good, wasn’t it?” called Billie.
Amanda nodded sullenly.
“Fifteen love!” sang Billie, and set herself for the serve.
From that moment the match settled into one of the grimmest contests
ever witnessed on the tennis courts of Three Towers Hall.
Each point was contested fiercely. Amanda and Billie were all over the
courts at once; they swung at the ball as though it were a personal
enemy; they caressed it deftly into incredible shots that left the
spectators mute and tingling with admiration.
“I don’t much care who wins,” cried Connie Danvers, dancing wildly on
the sidelines. “I don’t care! I don’t care! This is an exhibition worth
waiting a hundred years to see. Go it, Billie! Oh boy, what a back
hand! Ah--Amanda’s got it.”
“Forty-thirty,” cried Amanda, with a triumphant grin.
The score in games stood five-four in favor of Amanda. Now she needed
only one point to win game and set.
It was Amanda’s serve. Cunningly, she changed her tactics at this
critical moment, hoping to catch Billie off guard. Instead of her usual
lazy, tricky serve, she sent a smashing ball over the net, carrying it
far into the back court.
Billie raced for it, forgetting her injured knee, caught the ball by
little less than a miracle of skill, returned it, just missing the top
of the net.
Amanda slipped it over neatly and Billie had to run for it again.
On the sidelines Vi wailed:
“She’ll never last it, Laura! Her poor knee! How does she do it?”
“But she does it!” shrieked Laura, her eyes on fire. “Vi, look at that
return! She’s got Amanda on the run now! Go it, Billie--go it!”
Billie, knowing that she must save her knee, played close to the net.
Never so cool as in an emergency, she juggled the ball, sent Amanda
dashing all over the courts like a puppet at the end of a string.
It was such a masterly display as the girls had seldom seen. They were
on their feet, shouting, groaning, stamping with their feet.
Billie, cool, steady, saw her opportunity. Amanda, red and perspiring,
danced around in the back court, expecting a smashing return.
Billie ran backward, caught the ball neatly on the tip of her racket,
landed it teasingly, gently, just inside the net.
Amanda made a gallant dash for it, swung for it, and swooped up a
handful of sod on her racket.
“Forty-all,” said Billie and added generously: “Well tried, Amanda.”
That was practically the end of the match, so far as Amanda was
concerned. At best, a temperamental, erratic player, she was hopeless
when mastered by fury. Now she forgot all the skill and artistry of
her game, sent smashing shots to Billie that the latter returned with
ease.
Billie won that game, making it five-all, and took the next two on
points.
Amanda flung down her racket and followed it from the courts without
pausing to shake hands with her successful rival.
Those from the sidelines thronged about Billie, showering her with
compliments, dwelling on those few moments at the net when she had
showed her complete mastery of the game.
“I never saw such marvelous form!”
“But, Billie, what makes you limp so?”
“Billie may limp, but her game doesn’t!”
The praise was sweet to Billie. She drank it in eagerly, knowing that,
for that moment at least, all grudges were forgotten and she was once
more first in the hearts of her fellow students.
Espying Edina Tooker on the fringe of the crowd, Billie broke away from
the adulation of her schoolmates and went straight to the girl. That
glimpse of Edina had served to remind Billie that she was at last free
to resume her investigations in the girl’s behalf, to continue the
attempt to fasten the guilt for the theft of the Gift Club fund upon
the real thief and so absolve Edina.
From the courts, her friends watched Billie greet the ostracized girl
and a queer silence settled over them. They were remembering their
grievance against Billie Bradley. It was as though a damp cloud settled
on their spirits, obliterating their enthusiasm.
“I must say,” sniffed someone in the group, “I think Billie might be
less open in her friendship with that horrid girl. I can’t think how
she can still cling to her!”
Edina met Billie with outstretched hands.
“You were wonderful!” she cried. “I had to come out. I knew I oughtn’t
to, but I had to see you beat Amanda Peabody. If I could play tennis
like that!”
“Maybe you will some day,” replied Billie.
Edina caught her up quickly.
“Some day! I’m not going to be here that long, Billie. I’ve got to get
away from here--and get away quick.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about. Come away with me, Edina. I
have something to tell you that I think will interest you greatly.”
“May we come, too?” The voice was Laura Jordon’s who, with Vi, had come
up so quietly they had not been observed.
“Of course!” cried Billie eagerly. “I wasn’t sure you’d care to hear
what I have to say. But I think you will like it--_when_ you hear it.
Come along!”
The four girls walked for some distance into the woods along the
lakeshore. Then, making sure they were not observed, Billie recounted
for the benefit of her interested audience the story of her adventurous
day in town and the identification of the smudged five dollar bill by
Dan Larkin.
“You see,” she explained, “that five dollar bill with the ink blot
on it was part of my contribution to the Gift Club fund. I remember
noticing it at the time and thinking that it was a pity to have to give
in such a soiled-looking bill. When I recognized it that day in town I
decided to trace it back in the hope of finding a clue to the person
who stole the rest of the Gift Club money.”
“Did you?” breathed Vi.
“Did I? Listen! I found that an old peddler by the name of Dan Larkin
had given the bill to my storekeeper and when I followed up that lead,
who do you suppose I found had given the bill to Dan Larkin? A Mrs.
Tatgood!”
“Tatgood!” repeated Laura. “Why, that’s the name of one of the
dormitory maids, isn’t it?”
“Maria Tatgood has charge of Edina’s dormitory,” Billie pointed out.
“The Mrs. Tatgood mentioned by Dan Larkin must be some relative, her
mother perhaps.”
“But, Billie, if you think this Mrs. Tatgood is the thief, shouldn’t we
notify the police?”
“I thought of that the first thing,” Billie confessed. “But, after
all, we have only suspicions to go on so far. What the police want is
proof.”
“Then why not get busy and produce the proof?” cried Laura.
“Exactly! We may have to call in the boys to help. In fact, I think it
would be a good idea to ask their help. We may need it.”
Vi, who had been eying Billie thoughtfully, blurted out:
“You have some definite plan in mind, Billie. I can tell by the look of
you. Come clean now. What is it?”
“Well, I’ll tell you.”
Whereupon Billie outlined her plan. It was that she and Laura and
Vi, Edina too, if she liked, would enter into a plot to search Maria
Tatgood’s room.
“Vi and I will look through the maid’s things--she is almost certain
to have some of the money hidden about the house--while you and Edina,
Laura, keep watch to see that we are not interrupted.”
“Now is a good time,” Vi suggested. “Nearly everybody is still on the
courts discussing the tournament. Whatever we do will be likely to pass
unnoticed.”
“All right. Come ahead!” replied Billie.
The four girls returned to the Hall, entered cautiously by the rear
way, and went directly to the servants’ quarters, where they found
Maria Tatgood’s room without difficulty.
Billie tried the door and found it unlocked. Feeling like the most
desperate of conspirators, she opened the door and slipped inside,
motioning to Vi to follow her.
“We’ll have to be quick,” she whispered. “Maria may come back at any
time.”
The room contained a bed, a dresser, a washstand, two chairs and a
trunk.
“You take the dresser,” Billie directed. “I’ll attend to the trunk.”
The trunk was opened, but on lifting the lid, Billie found it almost
empty. A brief search served to assure her that nothing was there.
Vi had a little luck with the dresser. She unearthed fifteen dollars in
bills, but at sight of them Billie shook her head in disappointment.
“No good, if we don’t find more than that,” she said.
At the moment there came a soft, insistent scratching at the door, the
agreed-upon signal that trouble was brewing.
Billie slammed down the trunk lid. Vi shoved things into the dresser
drawer. Outside the room they found Laura and Edina in an agony of
impatience.
“Some one is coming! Hurry!”
They whisked about a turn in the corridor just in time to avoid the
person whose room they had ransacked. Careful to keep themselves
hidden, they watched Maria Tatgood go into her room and shut the door.
When Billie’s companions would have slipped away, anxious to get back
to the dormitory, she detained them.
“Let’s watch for awhile,” she proposed. “We may see something of
interest. You never can tell.”
Billie afterwards said that her suggestion was prompted by a “hunch.”
Be that as it may, the fact remains that Maria Tatgood emerged from her
room almost immediately, wearing hat and coat as though ready for an
outing. She turned down the corridor toward the servants’ entrance to
the Hall.
“Come along!” said Billie impulsively. “Let’s follow her!”