Billy inspected it eagerly. “That’s not his writing, but it’s his work. Nobody else could have sent it here. So he did scheme to keep us apart! That was why he took us to the wrong station to see you off.”
“And why he kept you out so late the night before,” put in Madeline. “We might have tried to telephone you about the name then. But I don’t see why he returned Betty’s letter. He might just as well have thrown it away.”
“Things you throw away leave tracks behind,” said Billy wisely. “But more likely he did it for the joke—timing it to get here to-night and all. Following all his moves is like going to a cobweb party. It will take us weeks, and then we shall miss some of the best points.”
As he was saying good-night Billy gave a sudden exclamation. “I’ve got to go back to London to-morrow to meet the crew, and I’d forgotten all about it. Well, I guess I’ve seen as much of some sides of Parisian life as most fellows could in three days, even if I didn’t get further than the front entrance of the Louvre.”
That night Babbie Hildreth slept lightly and dreamed strange dreams. About midnight she knocked the B’s knock on Babe’s door.
“No, I’m not sick, and I haven’t been robbed,” she said, in answer to Babe’s plaintive inquiries. “But there’s a ghost on my side of the house, and all the rooms around me are empty, so you couldn’t expect me to stay there all by myself.”
“Ghosts are your specialty,” murmured Babe, sleepily.
“Well, we’re not supposed to pursue our specialties alone,” objected Babbie. “I thought you’d be interested. Honestly it’s the funniest thing,” she went on earnestly. “Some one knocked on the gate, because he was locked out, I suppose, softly at first and then louder and louder. But now the gate has been opened, and still the person stands and knocks and knocks. It’s a man, I think.”
“Perhaps he’s drunk and doesn’t know enough to come in,” suggested Babe.
“No, he knocks as if he had a definite, sensible reason,” said Babbie decisively. “Hark! He’s actually pounding now. I hope Mademoiselle will turn him out in the morning, that is if he’s a boarder and not a ghost trying to wake up the person that it has come back to haunt.”