For a moment the girls looked as though they thought Billie had gone
mad. The proposal had been made to them so suddenly that it took their
breath away.
"But, Billie, aren't you afraid--after finding that blood-stained
handkerchief and everything?" demanded Vi, round-eyed.
"Of course I'm afraid! But I'm going just the same," said Billie
stoutly. "I've wondered and wondered about what might be in that locked
room till I'm nearly crazy. And if you won't go with me, I'm going
alone," she repeated.
"Don't be foolish," commanded Laura. "If you go, of course we'll go. But
suppose none of your keys will fit?" she added, glancing at a half dozen
rusty keys on a still more rusty key ring which Billie was jingling
nervously. Billie had found the key ring on a nail in a dark corner of
her locker the day before. She had been about to deliver it to the lost
and found office when the inspiration had come to her. She would try the
keys first to see if by any chance one of them could be used to unlock
the little door in tower three. It would be time enough afterward to
report her discovery.
Now at Laura's question she looked somewhat provoked.
"Don't you s'pose I've thought of that?" she said, adding, with a
twinkling smile: "Somebody is always taking the joy out of life!"
"We can try 'em, anyway," said Laura doubtfully, still speaking of the
keys. "But they don't look very promising."
"But, girls," Vi protested weakly, "suppose we should find something
horrible up there--a skeleton or something?"
"Well, the poor old skeleton couldn't hurt us," returned Laura, adding
with a giggle: "Probably it would be glad to see us after being up there
alone so long."
"But the blood-stained handkerchief"--Vi whispered.
"Oh, that!" said Laura, with a lofty wave of her hand. "That's nothing.
I told you before that probably somebody had a nose-bleed."
Which made even Vi giggle and had the effect of stilling her fears for
the time being, at least.
They had hard work getting away from their classmates without arousing
their suspicion, but they succeeded at last. The three girls ran lightly
up the three flights of stairs that led to the musty old attic.
Now that the moment was at hand they were more excited than nervous, and
their hearts beat high with the hope that they might really find a
mystery hidden behind that locked door. But what could it be?
The queer sounds and heavy musty smell of the attic that had seemed so
dreadful to Billie on that never-to-be-forgotten night seemed natural
and even funny in the revealing daylight.
The shadowy corners that had seemed so sinister when lighted only by one
tiny flickering candle were only corners now, cobwebbed and dusty, to be
sure, but harmless.
Mice scuttled across the floor squeaking angrily at being disturbed, but
although Vi screamed and Laura side-stepped nervously, Billie only
laughed. To-day they were only little mice more afraid of her than she
was of them. That night they had been monsters waiting to devour her.
But just the same, some measure of her nervousness returned when they
reached the stairway down which she had nearly tumbled in her wild
flight.
Laura and Vi seemed to share her uneasiness, for they stopped at the
foot of the stairs and held back a little.
"Who goes up first to meet the skeleton?" asked Laura, with an attempt
at a laugh that sounded strained even to herself.
"You do," said Vi, adding maliciously: "You were the one who said he
wouldn't hurt us."
Seeing that Laura was about to argue the point, Billie pushed
impatiently past them both and ran defiantly up the stairs. Laura, thus
challenged, took the stairs two at a time after her and Vi followed
reluctantly.
"Look! There's the handkerchief," said Billie, kicking the tiny square
of blood-stained linen over toward Laura, who jumped nervously out of
the way.
"Well, you needn't wish it on me," she said resentfully, picking up the
handkerchief by the very tip of a corner and presenting it to Billie
with a low bow. "Here, take back your gold----"
"What are you two whispering about?" demanded Vi, petulantly, for by
this time she was beginning to wish she had not come.
At her question Laura whirled suddenly about and poked the blood-stained
handkerchief directly beneath Vi's startled nose.
"There," she said. "Want it?"
Vi gave one look, screamed, and fled down the stairs. She had gone only
halfway, however, when Laura overtook her and dragged her back.
"None of that," she cried. "You can't back out now. Besides, we're only
beginning to have some fun."
"Fun!" groaned Vi, keeping a wary eye on the handkerchief that Laura
still held. "Well, I'm glad I know what to call it."
"Come on," said Billie, jingling her rusty keys and starting up the
ladder. "Now we'll see whether one of these keys will fit."
"I hope it doesn't," said Vi, under her breath, but Laura caught her up
sharply.
"What did you say?" she demanded.
"Oh--nothing," said Vi.
By this time Billie was on the top rung of the ladder and her fingers
trembled as she tried to fit the first of the keys into the lock. She
had more courage than Vi, yet almost she echoed the other girl's
wish--that she would not be able to find a key to fit.
She wanted to see what was on the other side of that locked door, yet
for some reason--perhaps the blood-stained handkerchief--she was afraid
to find out.
She had tried every key till she came to the next to the last, while
Laura and Vi fidgeted at the foot of the ladder.
"Won't they fit?" asked Laura, impatiently and in a high-strung tone.
"Yes," said Billie unexpectedly, as the key slipped into the lock and
turned easily under the pressure of her fingers. She hesitated and
looked down at the two girls before swinging the door wide.
"Aren't you coming?" she asked, and she could not, for the life of her,
keep a little scared quality out of her voice.
"Of course," cried Laura, recovering from her surprise--for she had
really not expected that any of Billie's keys would fit--and ascending
the ladder hand over hand. "'Lead on, Macduff, to victory or to death!'"
Vi groaned again and gingerly put a foot on the ladder. She did not know
which was worse, to remain there by herself or to follow the girls
to--goodness-knew-what. But the squeak of a mouse behind her made her
decide in favor of company, and she scurried in a panic up the ladder.
Meanwhile Billie and Laura were experiencing rather severe pangs of
something--they could not have told whether it was disappointment or
relief.
They had braced themselves to find something horrible--or at least
interesting--in the tower room, and they were rather taken aback at
finding themselves confronted with a large amount of nothing at all.
There seemed to be a great deal of junk scattered about, but in the
gloom of the place they could not even make that out very clearly.
There were windows all about the tiny room, but they were so encrusted
with ancient dirt and cobwebs that the bright sunlight of the
out-of-doors was reduced to a weird and spooky twilight, which seemed
somehow to correspond to the forlorn aspect of the place.
"Well," said Laura, drawing a deep breath, "we come up here expecting to
find something interesting and we get--stung!"
"It does look that way," admitted Billie ruefully. "Seems as if we might
at least have met a good live ghost or two."
"Live ghost!" sniffed Laura crossly, for she was really feeling very
much injured. "All the ghosts that I ever heard about were as dead as a
doornail."
"For goodness' sake, stop talking about dead people," said Vi
querulously from the doorway. "If there isn't anything in here--and
thank goodness there isn't--let's go back."
"Not yet," said Billie. Her eyes, become more accustomed to the dim
light, had lighted upon something interesting among the junk. What had
caught her attention was a large, clumsy-looking thing like a queerly
shaped wooden box. The girls watched her curiously as she bent over to
examine it.
"You haven't found your ghost, have you?" asked Vi, in a voice that was
meant to be sarcastic.
"No," said Billie, a thrill of wonder and excitement creeping into her
voice. "But I may have found something! Girls, come here and have a look
at this!"
The girls picked their way over the rubbish that littered the floor.
What had seemed like a peculiarly shaped box proved on closer inspection
to be some cunningly fashioned wooden machinery.
The girls looked at each other in awed silence. To them all in an
instant had come the same thrilling thought.
"The lost invention!" murmured Billie. "And we thought there was nothing
here!"