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."