MYSTERY
For several minutes Billie Bradley stood at the window straining her
eyes in the direction in which the man had disappeared, scarcely daring
to breathe.
Then, when she was sure that whoever the fellow was he did not intend to
come back, she turned from the window with a little sigh of mingled
excitement and relief.
It was only a sigh, but it sounded so loud in the stillness of the room
that it suddenly brought Billie to her senses.
Shivering a little, she crept into bed and drew the covers up under her
chin. It would never do to be discovered by Miss Ada at this last
minute, and she certainly could not do any good by standing there
staring out of the window.
Whoever the man was, he had gone now and would not return. But could she
be sure of that? Suppose he had been a thief--she shivered and drew the
covers over her head. In that case she should have roused Miss Ada and
told her the story.
But then, Miss Ada's first question was sure to be, "How did you happen
to be standing by the window at twelve o'clock at night?"
Then would come suspicion, a search, perhaps, and discovery. No, she
couldn't, she couldn't! But what had that man been doing?
For more than an hour she lay, too excited to sleep, shivering at any
sudden sound, wondering--wondering. Toward morning she fell asleep, only
to dream of picnics where one did nothing but catch codfish and eat
them, of a strange man with a stooping figure, running across a lawn
bathed in moonlight.
Luckily for the girls who had been at the party, there were other girls
in dormitory "C" who had gone to bed at the usual respectable
hour--Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks, for instance--and who, as usual,
heard the rising bell. If it had not been for them and the noise they
made Billie and the others of the five might have slept on till noon.
As it was, they rose resentfully, finding it hard to get their eyes
open, looking for their clothes half-heartedly, grumbling at everything
and everybody.
It was Billie, who had slept less than any of them, who whispered a
warning to them. She had seen Eliza and Amanda eyeing them suspiciously.
It would never do, after having managed the party so successfully, to
let the cat out of the bag after the affair was over.
The argument appealed to the girls, and they woke up with a suddenness
almost more suspicious than their former sleepiness had been.
It was not till noon that Billie found a chance to tell the girls what
she had seen from the dormitory window after the rest of them were in
bed.
By that time the last evidence of last night's party had been cleared
away, and the girls were beginning to feel secure again.
One by one they had run back to the dormitories between classes, made
the remnants of the feast into small paper bundles, and had smuggled
them down to the cellar and deposited them in the big box where all the
papers and other rubbish was kept until the man of all work about Three
Towers carted it off into the woods to be burnt up.
So now, in hilarious spirits, they answered Billie's call and flung
themselves in various characteristic and joyful attitudes upon her bed.
"Speak, woman, speak," Laura commanded her, stealing a chocolate from
Vi's sweater pocket. "What have you got to say for yourself?"
"Yes, what do you mean by getting up such a disgraceful affair as
happened here last night?" added Nellie Bane in such an exact imitation
of Miss Ada's manner that the girls giggled delightedly.
"Look out," cried Connie Danvers, in a whisper, for Amanda and the
"Shadow" had just come into the room. "If you are not careful our
wicked plot will yet be discovered."
"What is it you wanted to say, Billie?" asked Caroline in her
matter-of-fact tone. "If it's anything very private, I guess we'd better
move."
Caroline had been thinking about Rose and the happening of the night
before--thinking till her head ached--but she had not yet decided what
to do about it. As for Rose--her head ached, too--she knew what she was
going to do about it. Some way or other she was going to get even with
Billie! And Caroline, too, big snooping, spectacled thing!
"It isn't a bit private," said Billie, looking so serious that the girls
suddenly became serious too. "It was about something I saw last night
after----" she was about to say "after the party," but as Amanda and her
"Shadow" had come dangerously near and were listening with all their
ears, she decided not to.
"Well, what was it you saw?" the girls demanded impatiently, as she
hesitated.
Billie lowered her voice and spoke hurriedly.
"I saw him going across the lawn. He was running, and while I watched he
disappeared among the trees near the lake."
"A man?" asked Vi while the others stared.
"Of course," Billie nodded impatiently. "What did you think it was--a
grizzly bear?"
"It might have bees from your description," Vi retorted, but right here
the girls broke in with a running fire of questions and Billie was kept
busy trying to answer them all at once.
"But, Billie, why didn't you tell somebody?" Vi asked, but Laura crushed
her with a look.
"Tell somebody?" she repeated scornfully. "How could she and give the
whole----"
But this time it was Laura who suddenly came to a standstill, the reason
being a vicious little pinch from Billie in the fleshy part of her arm.
"Hush!" she whispered fiercely while all the girls looked alarmed.
"Haven't you any sense at all?"
And Laura, feeling very sheepish, did not even answer back. For Amanda
and the "Shadow" were still making excuses to hang around.
"But, Billie, what are we going to do about it?" asked Connie nervously.
"Yes, we don't want funny looking men wandering around our campus at
night," said Rose, lazily straightening a ruffle on her dress.
"No, nor in the day time either," said Nellie, looking fierce.
"Well, you all needn't look at me as if it were my fault," said Billie
plaintively. "I certainly didn't ask him to come and keep me awake all
the rest of the night."
"But nobody's answered my question," Connie objected. "I want to know
what we're going to do about it."
"Why, there's nothing to do about it," said Billie. "I suppose all we
can do is to wait till we see him again--if we do--and then tell Miss
Walters about it."
At that moment the gong rang and hands flew to straightening hair and
belts and ruffles preparatory to starting the afternoon classes.
"Well, all I have to say is," said Nellie as they turned toward the
door, "that I hope your strange man stays where he belongs, Billie, and
doesn't come back here."
"So say we all of us," said Connie, adding with a shudder: "Ugh! Your
story about the 'Codfish' last night, Billie--and now this! It's enough
to scare a person to death."
"There you go blaming me again," said Billie plaintively.
In the weeks that followed the girls very nearly forgot about the
unknown man, who certainly had no business roaming around Three Towers
Hall after midnight.
The only thing the chums did not like about the boarding school was the
Twin Dill Pickles. The latter were getting more and more
miserly--insisting that the girls were getting too much to eat and that
they should be allowed a great deal less liberty. In short, if the twin
teachers had had their way Three Towers might have been a prison instead
of a boarding school.
"However," said Billie one day, after Miss Cora Dill had been unusually
unpleasant, "perhaps we need the Dill Pickles. If we didn't have them we
might be too happy."
The girls from North Bend had now become fully settled at the school.
They had made a number of other friends, but so far their enemies seemed
to be confined to Amanda Peabody and her constant companion, Eliza
Dilks. Except Billie, that is, who added Miss Cora Dill and Rose Belser
to her enemy list. Amanda was becoming known as the sneak of the school,
but for this she did not seem to care.
"I wouldn't want such a reputation as that," said Laura one day.
"Nor I, either," answered Billie.
The boys from Boxton Military Academy had been over to see the girls
several times. Rules were very strict at Three Towers Hall, and if the
lads had not been related the boys could probably never have been
admitted at all. But Chet and Teddy could come in, and once or twice
they managed to smuggle poor Ferd along.
"I wish we could go out for a row on the lake," remarked Billie one
evening, as she gazed at the moonlight on the water.
Her wish was gratified the very next day. The boys invited them out,
having first obtained Miss Walters' consent to let them go.
Rose Belser had looked and smiled her prettiest--and that was a good
deal--the first time she happened to meet the boys and girls together.
But as the boys were too much interested in the fun they were going to
have to take much notice of her, she had merely tossed her pretty black
head and sauntered off in the opposite direction.
"Somehow or other I can't get next to that girl Rose," remarked Chet to
his sister, when the whole crowd was out on the lake.
"Well, Rose is rather peculiar in some respects," answered Billie, not
caring to say too much.
"What do you say to a race?" cried Teddy, after they had been rowing
around for a while.
"Don't upset!" exclaimed Vi warningly.
"No upsetting to-day, thank you," put in Ferd, who was in the crowd.
The girls were quite willing that the boys should race, and away they
went up the lake for half a mile or more. Teddy was carrying Billie,
and, of course, he exerted himself to the utmost to win the race.
"Here is where we put it all over you!" cried Chet, who was carrying
Laura.
"This race belongs to me," panted Ferd, who had Vi as a passenger.
A number of the boys and girls on the lake shore were watching the
contest, and wondering who would win. In the crowd, more out of
curiosity than anything else, were Amanda and Eliza.
"Huh! I wouldn't care to be on the lake with those boys," snapped
Amanda. "First thing they know they'll upset."
"They must be splashing water all over each other," was Eliza's comment.
At first it was almost an even race, but gradually Chet and Teddy drew
ahead.
"Oh, I guess it's going to be a tie," murmured Billie.
"Not much!" gasped Teddy, and put on an extra spurt which soon sent him
quite a distance ahead.
"Hurrah! We win!" shouted Billie triumphantly.
"All right, I guess you do!" flung out her brother. "I guess I ate too
much for dinner. That's the reason I couldn't row so well," he explained
lamely.
"Oh, dear! I wish we got as much as that to eat," sighed Laura.
The boat race had just come to a finish when those out on the lake heard
a cry from the shore. There seemed to be a great commotion among the
girls from Three Towers Hall.
"We'll go back and see what's up," shouted Ferd, and those in the
rowboats lost no time in following the suggestion.
They were still a hundred feet or more from the lake shore when they
saw what had happened. In their eagerness to see the finish of the race
Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks had ventured out on a soft bank, holding
to some low bushes for that purpose. Bushes and bank had given way
suddenly, and both girls had gone floundering into the water and mud up
to their waists. Now they had been pulled to safety, and their chums,
seeing that they were not hurt, set up a shout of laughter.
"You are mean things, that's what you are!" cried Amanda, in vexation.
"The meanest ever was!" echoed Eliza.
And then the two dripping figures hurried for the friendly shelter of
the boarding school.
"Gracious, what a happening!" was Vi's comment. And then she added
quickly: "But they deserved it."
"They certainly did," responded Laura. "What a fine thing it would be if
they would leave this school."