The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  “They have been very friendly and we have no complaint to make, that is sure, Helen,” she said.

  “How exasperating you are at times!” exclaimed her chum. “Just the same, I am glad we didn’t go with those poky Fussy Curls to their meeting.”

  Ruth made no reply to this. The bell in the tower had tolled nine, and they knew that there were twenty minutes only in which to get ready for retiring. Those girls who had lights after twenty minutes past nine were likely to be questioned, and any who burned a lamp after half after nine would find a demerit against their names in the morning.

  The chums hurried, then, to get ready for sleep. “Don’t you hope we’ll dream something very nice?” whispered Helen as she plunged into bed first.

  “I hope we will,” returned Ruth, waiting to see her comfortable before she turned out the light and bent over her chum to kiss her. “Good-night, Helen. I hope we’ll be just as good friends here, dear, as we have been since we met.”

  “Of course we will, Ruthie!” declared Helen, quite as warmly.

  “We will let nobody, or nothing, come between us?” said Ruth, a little wistfully in the dark.

  “Of course not!” declared Helen, with added emphasis.

  Then Ruth crept into her own bed and lay looking at the whiter patch of the nearest window long after Helen’s gentle, regular breathing announced her chum asleep. There were few other sounds about the dormitory. A door shut softly in the distance. Somewhere a dog barked once. Ruth was not sleepy at all. The day’s doings passed in a not unpleasant procession through her mind.

  It seemed a week—yes! a month—since she had left the Red Mill that morning. She again went over the pleasant road with the Camerons and Mrs. Murchiston to Cheslow. She remembered their conversation with good Dr. Davison, and wondered if by any possibility the time would come when poor Mercy Curtis could go to school—perhaps come to this very Briarwood Hall.

  The long ride on the train to Lake Osago was likewise repeated in Ruth’s mind; then the trip by boat to Portageton. She could not fail to recount the mysterious behavior of the big man who played the harp in the boat orchestra, and Mademoiselle Picolet. And while these thoughts were following in slow procession through her mind she suddenly became aware of a sound without. The nearest window was open—the lower sash raised to its full height. It was a warm and windless night.

  The sound was repeated. Ruth raised her head from the pillow. It was a faint scratching—at the door, or at the window? She could not tell.

  Ruth lay down again; then she sat upright in her bed as the sound continued. Every other noise about the house now seemed stilled. The dog did not bark. There was no rustle in the trees that shaded the campus. Where was that sound? At the door?

  Ruth was not afraid—only curious. If somebody was trying to attract her attention—if somebody wished to communicate with her, to get into the room—

  She hopped out of bed. Helen still slept as calmly as though she was in her own bed at home. Ruth went softly to the door. She had latched it when they came in. Now she pushed the bolt back softly. Was there a rustle and a soft whisper behind the panels?

  Suddenly, as the fastening was removed, the door was pushed inward. Ruth stepped back. Had she been of a very nervous disposition, she would have cried aloud in fright, for two figures all in white stood at the door.

  “Hush!” commanded the taller of the two shrouded figures. “Not a word.”

  Thus commanded, and half frightened, as well as wholly amazed, Ruth remained passive. The two white figures entered; two more followed; two more followed in turn, until there were eight couples—girls and all shrouded in sheets, with pillow-case hoods over their heads, in which were cut small “eyes”—within the duet room. Somebody closed the door. Somebody else motioned Ruth to awaken Helen.

  Ruth hesitated. She at once supposed that some of their school-fellows meant to haze them; but she did not know how her chum would take such a startling awakening from sound sleep. She knew that, had she been asleep herself and opened her eyes to see these shrouded figures gathered about her bed, she would have been frightened beyond expression.

  “Don’t let her see you first!” gasped Ruth, affrightedly.

  Instantly two of the girls seized her and, as she involuntarily opened her lips to scream, one thrust a ball of clean rags into her mouth, thrusting it in so far that it effectually gagged her, nor could she expel the ball from her mouth. It was not a cruel act, but it was awfully uncomfortable, and being held firmly by her two assailants, Ruth could do nothing, either in her own behalf, or for Helen.

  But she was determined not to cry. These big girls called them “Infants,” and Ruth Fielding determined not to deserve the name. She had no idea that the hazing party would really hurt them; they would have for their principal object the frightening of the new-comers to Briarwood Hall; and, secondarily, they would try to make Ruth and Helen appear just as ridiculous as possible.

  Ruth was sorry in a moment that she had breathed a syllable aloud; for she was not allowed to awaken Helen. Instead, a girl went to either side of the bed and leaned over Ruth’s sleeping chum. The tall, peaked caps made of the pillow-cases looked awful enough, and Ruth was in a really unhappy state of mind. All for Helen’s sake, too. She had opened the door to these thoughtless girls. If she only had not done it!

  Suddenly Helen started upright in bed. Her black eyes glared for a moment as she beheld the row of sheeted figures. But her lips only opened to emit a single “Oh!”

  “Silence!” commanded one of the figures leaning over the bed, and Ruth, whose ears were sharpened now, believed that she recognized Mary Cox’s voice. She immediately decided that these girls who had come to haze them were the very Juniors who had been so nice to them that evening—“The Fox” and her fellow-members of the Upedes. But Ruth was more interested just then in the manner in which Helen was going to take her sudden awakening.

  Fortunately her chum seemed quite prepared for the visitation. After her first involuntary cry, she remained silent, and she even smiled across the footboard at Ruth, who, gagged and held captive, was certainly in no pleasant situation. The thought flashed into Ruth’s mind: “Did Helen have reason for expecting this visit, and not warn me?”

  “Up!” commanded the previous speaker among the white-robed company. “Your doom awaits you.”

  Helen put her bare feet out of bed, but was allowed to put her slippers on. The chums were in their night apparel only. Fortunately the air breathed in at the open window was warm. So there was no danger of their getting cold.

  The two new girls were placed side by side. Helen was not gagged as Ruth was; but, of course, she had uttered only that single startled cry when she awoke. There was great solemnity among the shrouded figures as the chums stood in their midst. The girl who had previously spoken (and whom Ruth was quite positive was Mary Cox—for she seemed to be the leader and prime mover in this event) swept everything off the table and mounted upon it, where she sat cross-legged—like a tailor, or a Turk.

  “Bring the culprits before the throne!” she commanded, in a sepulchral voice.

  Helen actually giggled. But Ruth did not feel much like laughing. The ball of rags in her mouth had begun to hurt her, and she was held tightly by her two guards so that she could not have an instant’s freedom. She was not, in addition, quite sure that these girls would not attempt to haze their prisoners in some unbecoming, or dangerous, way. Therefore, she was not undisturbed in her mind as she stood in the midst of the shrouded company of her school-fellows.

  CHAPTER X

  SOMETHING MORE THAN GHOSTS

  Helen pinched Ruth’s arm. It was plain that her guards did not hold Helen as tightly as they did Ruth. And why was that? Ruth thought. Could it be possible that her chum had had warning of this midnight visitation?

  Not that Ruth felt very much fear of the outcome of the exercises; but
the possibility that her old friend had kept any secret knowledge of the raid from her troubled Ruth immensely. Since they had come among the girls of Briarwood Hall—and that so few hours before—Ruth felt that she and Helen were not so close together. There was danger of their drifting apart, and the possibility troubled Ruth Fielding exceedingly.

  The thought of it now, however, was but momentary. Naturally she was vitally interested in what was about to be done to her by the party of hazers.

  “I am pained,” said the girl sitting on the table, “that one of the neophytes comes before us with a bigger mouthful than she can swallow. If she understands fully that a single word above a whisper—or any word at all unless she is addressed by the Sisters—will be punished by her being instantly corked up again, the gag may be removed. Do you understand, Neophyte? Nod once!”

  Ruth, glad to get rid of the unpleasant mouthful on any terms, nodded vigorously. Immediately her captors let go of her arms and one of them pulled the “stopper” out of her mouth.

  “Now, remember!” uttered the girl on the table, warningly. “A word aloud and the plug goes back.” Helen giggled again, but Ruth didn’t feel like laughing herself. “Now, culprits!” continued the leader of the hazing party, “you must be judged for your temerity. How dared you come to Briarwood Hall, Infants?”

  “Please, Ma’am,” whispered Helen, who seemed to think the whole affair a great lark, “our guardians sent us here. We are not responsible.”

  “You may not so easily escape responsibility for your acts,” hissed the girl on the table. “Those who enter Briarwood Hall must show themselves worthy of the high honor. It takes courage to come under the eye of Mrs. Tellingham; it takes supernatural courage to come under the eye of Picolet!”

  “If she wasn’t out of the house tonight you may believe we wouldn’t be out of bed,” murmured another of the midnight visitors, whom Ruth was quite sure was Belle Tingley.

  “And I hope you made no mistake about that, Miss!” snapped the girl on the table. “You went to her door.”

  “And knocked, and asked for toothache drops,” giggled another of the shrouded figures.

  “And she wasn’t there. I pushed the door open,” muttered the other girl. “I know she went out. I heard the door open and shut half an hour before.”

  “She’s a sly one, she is,” declared the girl on the table. “But, enough of Picolet. It is these small infants we have to judge; not that old cat. We say they have shown temerity in coming to Briarwood—is it not so, friends and fellow members—ahem! is it not so?”

  There was a responsive giggle from the shrouded figures about the room.

  “Then punishment must be the portion of these Infants,” declared the foremost hazer. “They claim that they were sent here against their will and that it was not reckless bravery that brought them to these scholastic halls. Let them prove their courage then—what say the Sisters?”

  The Sisters giggled a good deal, but the majority seemed to be of the opinion that proof of the Infants’ courage should be exacted.

  “Then let the Golden Goblet be brought,” commanded the leader, her voice still carefully lowered, for even if Miss Picolet was out of the dormitory, Miss Scrimp, the matron, was asleep in her own room, likewise on the lower floor of the building. Somebody produced a vase which had evidently been covered with bright gold-foil for the occasion. “Here,” said the leader, holding the vase out to Helen. “Take this Golden Goblet and fill it at the fountain on the campus. You will be taken down to the door by the guards, who will await your return and will bring you back again. And remember! Silence!”

  The lights all around the campus had gone out ere this. There was no moon, and although it was a clear night, with countless stars in the heavens, it seemed dark and lonely indeed down there under the trees between the school buildings.

  “Do not hesitate, Infant!” commanded the leader of the hazing party. “Nor shall you think to befool us, Miss! Take the Golden Goblet, and fill and drink at the fountain. But leave the goblet there, that we may know you have accomplished the task set you!”

  This was said most solemnly; but the solemnity would not have bothered Helen Cameron at all, had the task been given to somebody else! The thought of venturing out there in the dark on the campus rather quelled her propensity for giggling.

  But there seemed to be no way of begging off from the trial. Helen cast a look of pleading at her chum; but what could Ruth do? She was surprised that the task had not been given to her instead; she believed that these girls were really more friendly in feeling toward Helen than toward herself. At least, it was Mary Cox on the table, and Mary Cox had shown Helen much more attention than she had Ruth.

  Two of the sheeted visitors seized Helen again and led her softly out of the room. A sentinel had been left in the corridor, and the word was whispered that all was silent in the house; Miss Scrimp was known to be a heavy sleeper, and the French teacher was certainly absent from her room.

  The girls led Helen downstairs and to the outer door. This opened with a spring lock. The guards whispered that they would remain to await her return, and the new girl was pushed out of doors, with nothing over her nightgown but a wrapper, and only slippers on her feet.

  Although there was little breeze now, it was not cold. But it was dark under the trees. Ruth, who could look out of the windows above, wondered how her chum was getting on. To go clear to the center of the campus with that vase, and leave it at the foot of the figure surmounting the fountain, was no pleasant experience, Ruth felt.

  The minutes passed slowly, the girls in their shrouds whispering among themselves. Suddenly there came a sound from outside—a pattering of running feet on the cement walk. Ruth sprang to the nearest window in spite of the commands of the hazing party. Helen was running toward the house at a speed which betrayed her agitation. Besides, Ruth could hear her sobbing under her breath:

  “Oh, oh, oh!”

  “You’ve scared her half to death!” exclaimed Ruth, angrily, as the girls seized her.

  “Put in the stopper!” commanded the girl who had seated herself on the table, and instantly the ball of rags was driven into Ruth’s mouth again and she was held, in spite of her struggles, by her captors.

  Ruth was angry now. Helen had been tricked into going to the fountain, and by some means the hazers had frightened her on her journey. But it was a couple of minutes before her chum was brought back to the room. Helen was shivering and sobbing between the guards—indeed they held her up, for she would have fallen.

  “What’s the matter with the great booby?” demanded the girl on the table.

  “She—she says she heard something, or saw something, at the fountain,” said one of the other girls, in a quavering voice.

  “Of course she did—they always do,” declared the leader. “Isn’t the fountain haunted? We know it is so.”

  This was all said for effect, and to impress her, Ruth knew. But she tried to go to Helen. They held her back, however, and she could not speak.

  “Did the Neophyte go to the fountain?” demanded the leader, sternly.

  Helen, in spite of her tears, nodded vigorously.

  “Did she drink of the water there?”

  “I—I was drinking it when I—I heard somebody—”

  “The ghost of the very beautiful woman whose statue adorns the fountain,” declared Mary Cox, if it were she, in a sepulchral voice.

  Ruth knew now why the story of the fountain had been told them earlier in the evening, but personally she had not been much impressed by it then, nor was she frightened now. She was only indignant that Helen and she should be treated so—and by these very girls for whom her chum had conceived such a fancy.

  Helen was still trembling. They let her sit down upon her bed, and Ruth wanted to go to her more than ever, and comfort her. But the girl on the table brought her up short.

&
nbsp; “Now, Miss!” she exclaimed. “You are the next. The first Infant has left the Golden Goblet at the fountain—you did leave it there; didn’t you, you ’fraid-cat?” she demanded sharply, of Helen. Helen bobbed her head and sobbed. “Then,” said the leader of the hazing party, “you go and bring it here.”

  Ruth stared at her in surprise. She did not move.

  “Take out her gag. Lead her to the door. If she does not come back with the Golden Goblet, lock her out and let her cool her temper till morning on the grass,” said the girl on the table, cruelly. “And if she stirs up trouble, she’ll wish she had never come to Briarwood!”

  CHAPTER XI

  THE VOICE OF THE HARP

  “Among two hundred girls there are bound to be girls of a good many different kinds.” So had said Mrs. Tellingham when Ruth Fielding and her chum presented themselves before the Preceptress not many hours before. And Ruth saw plainly that some of these shrouded and masked figures, at least, were of the kind against whom Mrs. Tellingham had quietly warned them. These were not alone careless and thoughtless, however; but the girl whom Ruth believed to be Mary Cox, their whilom friend and guide, was cruel likewise.

  Ruth Fielding was no coward. She believed these girls had arranged to terrify their victims by some manifestation at the fountain—why, otherwise, had they sent Helen there and now were determined to make Ruth repeat the experience? Nor was it necessary for the leader of the crew of hazers to remind the girl from the Red Mill how unpleasant they could make it for her if the dared report them to the teachers.

  “Now, First Neophyte!” exclaimed the leader of their visitors. “Where did you leave the Golden Goblet?”

  “On the pedestal, right between the feet of the figure,” sobbed Helen.

  “You hear?” repeated the other, turning her shrouded face to Ruth. “Then go, drink likewise of the fountain, and bring back the goblet. Failure to perform this task will be punished not only in the present, but in the future. Take her away—and remember your orders, guards.”

  The door was opened ever so quietly and the sentinel outside assured them that nobody had stirred. All had been so far conducted so carefully that even the other girls not in the plot were not awakened. As Ruth was led past the door of the larger room, which she knew Mary Cox and her three chums occupied, she heard the unmistakable snoring of a sound sleeper within. It made her doubt if, after all, those four who had appeared so friendly to Helen and herself that evening, were among the hazers; and she heard one of her guards whisper: