They paused and listened for a moment, but the place was as still as a tomb. A dim gas-light burned in the long corridor, on each side of which were the arched entrances to the locker rooms of the various classes, wash rooms and Miss Gray’s own private office.
“It reminds me of the catacombs in this light,” whispered Billie. “I’m almost afraid of the sound of my own voice.”
The girls slipped silently down the passage to the stairway leading to the class rooms. At her desk in the sophomore study room on the third floor Billie found her algebra. As she gathered together some of her scattered papers in the not over tidy interior of the little one-seated desk form, and searched for a certain favorite stubby pencil which she claimed brought her good luck with her problems, Mary at her own desk gave a cry of dismay and sat down limply.
“What was it, a mouse?” asked Billie, her voice sounding quite loud in the empty room.
“Oh, Billie, Billie, no, it was not a mouse. It was fifty dollars,” cried Mary. “I found it just now in my desk.”
“Fifty dollars?” echoed Billie, slipping her algebra into her pocket and hurrying over to her friend’s desk. “Are you playing a trick on me, Mary?”
“Listen, Billie,” said Mary. “I’m going to tell you something. I believe I am the victim of some kind of conspiracy. You know of course about all of the things that have been stolen from school lately?”
“Yes, but I haven’t had any losses myself; so I haven’t talked about it much to the others.”
“Of course you had no idea that I was supposed to be the thief,” Mary went on, with a sort of dry sob in her voice that was more heart-breaking to Billie than real weeping would have been.
Mary told her the story of Fannie Alta and the twenty dollars.