CHAPTER XVI
MYSTERY
For several minutes Billie Bradley stood at the window straining hereyes in the direction in which the man had disappeared, scarcely daringto breathe.
Then, when she was sure that whoever the fellow was he did not intend tocome back, she turned from the window with a little sigh of mingledexcitement and relief.
It was only a sigh, but it sounded so loud in the stillness of the roomthat it suddenly brought Billie to her senses.
Shivering a little, she crept into bed and drew the covers up under herchin. It would never do to be discovered by Miss Ada at this lastminute, and she certainly could not do any good by standing therestaring out of the window.
Whoever the man was, he had gone now and would not return. But could shebe sure of that? Suppose he had been a thief--she shivered and drew thecovers over her head. In that case she should have roused Miss Ada andtold her the story.
But then, Miss Ada's first question was sure to be, "How did you happento be standing by the window at twelve o'clock at night?"
Then would come suspicion, a search, perhaps, and discovery. No, shecouldn't, she couldn't! But what had that man been doing?
For more than an hour she lay, too excited to sleep, shivering at anysudden sound, wondering--wondering. Toward morning she fell asleep, onlyto dream of picnics where one did nothing but catch codfish and eatthem, of a strange man with a stooping figure, running across a lawnbathed in moonlight.
Luckily for the girls who had been at the party, there were other girlsin dormitory "C" who had gone to bed at the usual respectablehour--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 theymade 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 eyesopen, looking for their clothes half-heartedly, grumbling at everythingand everybody.
It was Billie, who had slept less than any of them, who whispered awarning to them. She had seen Eliza and Amanda eyeing them suspiciously.It would never do, after having managed the party so successfully, tolet the cat out of the bag after the affair was over.
The argument appealed to the girls, and they woke up with a suddennessalmost more suspicious than their former sleepiness had been.
It was not till noon that Billie found a chance to tell the girls whatshe had seen from the dormitory window after the rest of them were inbed.
By that time the last evidence of last night's party had been clearedaway, and the girls were beginning to feel secure again.
One by one they had run back to the dormitories between classes, madethe remnants of the feast into small paper bundles, and had smuggledthem down to the cellar and deposited them in the big box where all thepapers and other rubbish was kept until the man of all work about ThreeTowers carted it off into the woods to be burnt up.
So now, in hilarious spirits, they answered Billie's call and flungthemselves in various characteristic and joyful attitudes upon her bed.
"Speak, woman, speak," Laura commanded her, stealing a chocolate fromVi's sweater pocket. "What have you got to say for yourself?"
"Yes, what do you mean by getting up such a disgraceful affair ashappened here last night?" added Nellie Bane in such an exact imitationof 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 ourwicked plot will yet be discovered."
"What is it you wanted to say, Billie?" asked Caroline in hermatter-of-fact tone. "If it's anything very private, I guess we'd bettermove."
Caroline had been thinking about Rose and the happening of the nightbefore--thinking till her head ached--but she had not yet decided whatto do about it. As for Rose--her head ached, too--she knew what she wasgoing to do about it. Some way or other she was going to get even withBillie! And Caroline, too, big snooping, spectacled thing!
"It isn't a bit private," said Billie, looking so serious that the girlssuddenly became serious too. "It was about something I saw last nightafter----" she was about to say "after the party," but as Amanda and her"Shadow" had come dangerously near and were listening with all theirears, she decided not to.
"Well, what was it you saw?" the girls demanded impatiently, as shehesitated.
Billie lowered her voice and spoke hurriedly.
"I saw him going across the lawn. He was running, and while I watched hedisappeared 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--agrizzly bear?"
"It might have bees from your description," Vi retorted, but right herethe girls broke in with a running fire of questions and Billie was keptbusy trying to answer them all at once.
"But, Billie, why didn't you tell somebody?" Vi asked, but Laura crushedher with a look.
"Tell somebody?" she repeated scornfully. "How could she and give thewhole----"
But this time it was Laura who suddenly came to a standstill, the reasonbeing 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 Amandaand 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 atnight," 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 Billieplaintively. "I certainly didn't ask him to come and keep me awake allthe rest of the night."
"But nobody's answered my question," Connie objected. "I want to knowwhat we're going to do about it."
"Why, there's nothing to do about it," said Billie. "I suppose all wecan do is to wait till we see him again--if we do--and then tell MissWalters about it."
At that moment the gong rang and hands flew to straightening hair andbelts and ruffles preparatory to starting the afternoon classes.
"Well, all I have to say is," said Nellie as they turned toward thedoor, "that I hope your strange man stays where he belongs, Billie, anddoesn't come back here."
"So say we all of us," said Connie, adding with a shudder: "Ugh! Yourstory about the 'Codfish' last night, Billie--and now this! It's enoughto 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 theunknown man, who certainly had no business roaming around Three TowersHall after midnight.
The only thing the chums did not like about the boarding school was theTwin Dill Pickles. The latter were getting more and moremiserly--insisting that the girls were getting too much to eat and thatthey should be allowed a great deal less liberty. In short, if the twinteachers had had their way Three Towers might have been a prison insteadof a boarding school.
"However," said Billie one day, after Miss Cora Dill had been unusuallyunpleasant, "perhaps we need the Dill Pickles. If we didn't have them wemight 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 seemedto be confined to Amanda Peabody and her constant companion, ElizaDilks. Except Billie, that is, who added Miss Cora Dill and Rose Belserto 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 girlsseveral times. Rules were very strict at Three Towers Hall, and if thelads had not been related the
boys could probably never have beenadmitted at all. But Chet and Teddy could come in, and once or twicethey managed to smuggle poor Ferd along.
"I wish we could go out for a row on the lake," remarked Billie oneevening, 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 gooddeal--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 tohave to take much notice of her, she had merely tossed her pretty blackhead and sauntered off in the opposite direction.
"Somehow or other I can't get next to that girl Rose," remarked Chet tohis sister, when the whole crowd was out on the lake.
"Well, Rose is rather peculiar in some respects," answered Billie, notcaring to say too much.
"What do you say to a race?" cried Teddy, after they had been rowingaround 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 theywent 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 carryingLaura.
"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 thecontest, and wondering who would win. In the crowd, more out ofcuriosity than anything else, were Amanda and Eliza.
"Huh! I wouldn't care to be on the lake with those boys," snappedAmanda. "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 drewahead.
"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 himquite a distance ahead.
"Hurrah! We win!" shouted Billie triumphantly.
"All right, I guess you do!" flung out her brother. "I guess I ate toomuch for dinner. That's the reason I couldn't row so well," he explainedlamely.
"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 hearda cry from the shore. There seemed to be a great commotion among thegirls from Three Towers Hall.
"We'll go back and see what's up," shouted Ferd, and those in therowboats lost no time in following the suggestion.
They were still a hundred feet or more from the lake shore when theysaw what had happened. In their eagerness to see the finish of the raceAmanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks had ventured out on a soft bank, holdingto some low bushes for that purpose. Bushes and bank had given waysuddenly, and both girls had gone floundering into the water and mud upto 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 ofthe boarding school.
"Gracious, what a happening!" was Vi's comment. And then she addedquickly: "But they deserved it."
"They certainly did," responded Laura. "What a fine thing it would be ifthey would leave this school."
Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall; Or, Leading a Needed Rebellion Page 16
