A PLOT FAILS
Caroline Brant had been watching from behind a pair of horn-rimmed
spectacles, although nobody, not even Rose, could have told it.
She had seen Rose glance into the room, had noticed how queerly she had
looked at Billie, and now, as Rose started across the corridor, Caroline
was at her heels, quick as a cat.
It was not till Rose's hand was on the knob of the door across the hall
that Caroline spoke.
All she said was, "Where are you going?" in a quiet little whisper, but
Rose whirled upon her fiercely.
"You're following me," she cried, almost forgetting to whisper in her
fury. "What do you mean?"
"You'd better not make so much noise," said Caroline calmly. "We'll have
Miss Ada or Miss Cora down upon us if you're not careful."
"Miss Ada or Miss Cora," mimicked Rose, actually trembling with fear and
rage at being caught. "What do I care for Miss Ada or Miss Cora!"
"Well, I care a lot, if you don't," retorted Caroline, urging the
excited girl back toward the lighted dormitory. "I don't know what
you're so mad about anyway," she added, as Rose glared at her. "Your
time for playing guard was up, and when I came over to tell you about it
I found you were gone."
Caroline was fibbing--or, at least, partly so--but Rose had no way of
knowing that. What she did know was that she had made a goose of herself
for nothing, and all at once she hated Caroline more than she hated
Billie or any one else on earth.
But she did not dare show it. The only thing for her to do was to try to
pass the thing off the best she could. So when they reached the door she
looked up at Caroline with the best smile she could manage and tried
hard to keep her voice steady.
"I'm sorry I spoke as I did," she said. "I was just going to slip into
the dorm and get a bottle of olives that fell under the bed. And when
you spoke to me so suddenly it frightened me--that's all."
"It seems a pretty big chance to take--for a bottle of olives," said
Caroline gravely, and in spite of herself Rose flushed. Oh, how she
hated "grinds" that wore horn-rimmed spectacles!
The two were greeted joyfully by the rest of the girls, who would never
know just how near they had been to discovery.
"I guess the time's up for your watch, Rose," said Billie. "Come on,
let's draw lots and see who's the next."
Laura made a dash for the glass bowl that served as a lottery but
Caroline interrupted her.
"I'll stand watch for a while," she said, adding as the girls started to
protest: "It's hot in here and it's cool in the hall, and I need cooling
off. Will somebody hand me a sandwich once in a while?"
"I'll say we will," they cried, and immediately began plying her with so
many sandwiches and pickles and biscuits that she laughingly protested.
"And don't make too much noise," she said, as she started for the door.
"You know Miss Ada may be a little suspicious that there's something up
and come snooping around again."
"Well, you know the signal," Billie whispered after her. "Scratch twice
on the door."
Caroline nodded, glanced at Rose, and went out to her post, sandwiches,
pickles, biscuits and all.
The rest of that evening was not very pleasant for either Caroline or
Rose. Caroline was wondering whether she ought to tell Billie and the
other girls that she had found Rose sneaking, yes, actually sneaking,
into the room across the hall when she should have been at her post.
"Of course, I don't know that she was going to do anything wrong," she
kept telling herself, yet in her heart she knew that Rose had been up to
some mischief. "But it isn't fair to Billie not to say anything," she
worried. "I know Rose, and she's sure to try to get even some time, and
Billie ought to be told to look out." And all the time she was thinking,
her ears were strained for the slightest noise below stairs.
As for Rose, she would have pleaded a headache, for by that time she
really had one, and gone to bed, if she had not been afraid of being
laughed at by the girls.
And so she stayed on and on, trying to act as if nothing were the
matter, laughing and joking with the other girls, eating sandwiches and
cake till she was sick of the very sight of them, while all the time she
was wondering, wondering, what Caroline was going to do.
"She can't really tell anything," she worried, while her head ached
harder and harder. "I didn't really _do_ anything."
But all the time she knew that just leaving her post at the door when so
much depended upon the girls not being discovered was a terrible thing
and one that the girls would find it hard to forgive should they find
her out.
"If only Caroline doesn't say anything," she thought, adding spitefully:
"And now I suppose I've got to be nice to the old thing, whether I want
to or not."
Meanwhile, the rest of the girls were having a gay time. Never had a
forbidden feast gone off so beautifully before, and they were in
hilarious spirits.
As the hour hand of the little clock on Nellie's dresser crept near to
midnight the girls packed up the fragments of the feast, and, after they
had pushed the baskets out of sight under the beds, drew their chairs
together to form a semi-circle and began joyfully to tell the most
blood-curdling ghost stories they knew.
Each girl had to tell some story she had read or heard, or if she was so
unfortunate as never to have read or heard any, was forced to make one
up "out of her own head."
The fun waxed fast and furious, each story being more hair-raising than
the last until it came to Billie's turn.
"But I don't know any ghost stories, and I'm no good at making them up,"
she protested when the girls looked at her expectantly. "I like
adventure stories about treasure hunting and robbers and murderers and
things----"
"Well, that'll do," said Laura joyfully, while the other girls shivered
delightedly and drew close together. "Tell us a murder story, Billie."
Billie was about to open her mouth in protest when Vi suddenly made a
suggestion.
"I've got the very thing," she cried. "Tell the girls about the
'Codfish,' Billie."
"'The codfish'?" they repeated, looking puzzled, while Rose added with a
little yawn: "Yes, do tell us about the codfish, Billie--it sounds so
interesting."
The tone more than the words made Billie angry, but before she had time
to retort the girls broke in, eagerly demanding the story of the
"Codfish."
"We caught one one time on a family fishing trip," said one of the
girls, taking it for granted that this particular codfish was of the
swimming variety, "and we had fried codfish steaks for a week
afterward."
Billie chuckled while Vi and Laura openly giggled.
"But this wasn't that kind of a fish," said Billie. "It was a man."
This was almost too much for the girls, who were beginning to think that
Billie and Laura and Vi had suddenly gone crazy, but Billie hurried on
to explain about the "Codfish," growing more and more interested in her
story as she went on.
As for the girls, well, they simply hung on her words, and when she came
to the part where the thief had dropped her precious trunk in the
roadway they exclaimed so loudly that Caroline had to warn them to be
quiet. By this time the guard at the door had been removed, as there was
little danger of discovery at so late an hour.
"Well," sighed Connie Danvers, when Billie had finished her story, "I
wish something like that would happen to me sometime. It sounds just
like a story book."
"But you should have caught him," Nellie objected. Though Nellie had
heard of Billie's wonderful good fortune in finding the old trunk, she
had never heard the details of the part the "Codfish" had played in it
until to-night. "It gives me the shivers to think that an awful thing
like that, with red hair and a fishy mouth, should be wandering around
loose."
"I'm sure I'll dream of him to-night," said one of the other girls
plaintively.
"Speaking of dreams," said Billie, getting to her feet so quickly that
she almost upset the girl beside her, "don't you all think we'd better
get back to our dorm? It's after midnight, and--I'm awfully afraid of
Miss Ada."
"Well, I'm not--not after to-night," said Laura. "You surely did fool
the Pickle with your snoring, Billie."
"Yes. But next time somebody else will have to do the snoring," said
Billie, with a rueful little smile.
There followed whispered good-nights interspersed with giggles, and
finally the five girls from dormitory "C" tiptoed across the hall, and,
silent as mice, crept into their own room.
Quickly they undressed and slipped into their white nightgowns,
listening breathlessly every once in a while for some sound that might
tell of discovery.
None came, however; the big house was as silent as a tomb and Billie was
just about to slip into bed when she happened to look out of the window.
The moon was bright, bathing the smooth lawn of Three Towers in a light
almost as bright as day, so that Billie could not have been mistaken in
what she saw.
A man ran quickly, furtively, across the lawn and disappeared in the
shadow of the trees bordering the lake. Billie's heart amazingly skipped
a beat and then stood still.