Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower

“I don’t know,” answered Billie honestly. “Perhaps it is just because I would like to help you so much.”

The woman reached over and patted her hand gently, but her eyes had become listless again.

“You – everybody – have been so good to me,” she said, tonelessly. “I don’t know why you have been so good – no one ever was before. But there is one thing you can not do for me. You can not restore my poor husband’s invention, the loss of which caused his death. That would be a miracle. And in these days no one is working miracles.”

Mrs. Haddon left the room for a moment, and in that moment Billie slipped the little box containing their three precious gold pieces behind the alarm clock that stood on a shelf over the sink.

The woman returned before Billie had quite finished, but she was too worried and anxious and unhappy to notice anything unusual. And the little box was still safe in its hiding place when the girls took their leave a few minutes later.

“Won’t she be surprised when she finds it?” crowed Vi delightedly. “I feel like Santa Claus.”

“Well, you don’t look like it,” returned Laura, “Your face isn’t red enough.”

CHAPTER XVII – BILLIE ON GUARD

From this remark of Laura’s it may be easily seen that she was still a little grouchy about having to give up five dollars’ worth of sodas and candy. But away down in her heart she derived more real pleasure from the thought of what her gold piece would buy for the Haddons than she would out of a great deal more than five dollars’ worth of pleasure for herself.

“Billie,” spoke up Vi suddenly after they had walked some little way in silence, “what did you ask Mrs. Haddon about that lost invention for?”

“Yes, it sounded as if you really knew something about it,” Laura took her up eagerly. “You don’t, do you?”

“Not a thing in the world,” Billie replied quickly. “Only,” she added slowly, the same thoughtful look in her eyes that had been there before, “so many queer things have happened to me lately that I’m getting sort of queer myself, I guess. I can’t help thinking about that cave Teddy and I found.”

“Well, I don’t blame you for thinking of it,” said Laura, looking curiously at her chum. “I think of it myself – quite often. But what has that to do with the stolen machinery models?”

“Nothing, of course,” said Billie, adding as the three towers of the grand old Hall loomed into view. “But I would like to have a look at the inside of that cave again. Maybe the models were taken there and broken up. The cave was full of junk.”

Laura, really curious by this time, was about to put a question when she saw Amanda and the “Shadow” approaching, and the question died in her throat.

The three classmates, who never deliberately “cut” anybody, nodded to the two girls in a friendly enough manner, but the latter looked straight at them and never so much as winked an eye.

“Whew!” whistled Laura, softly, as the chums stopped and looked back after the unmannerly girls. “Cut, by jinks!”

“And by Amanda, of all people!” added Vi, in the same tone.

“Well, come on,” said Billie, and she turned and led the way up the steps. “There’s no use standing there and looking after them like a lot of wooden Indians. I’d like – ” she added, her temper getting the better of her for the moment, “I would like to wring that girl’s neck.”

“Do you know,” said Vi a few minutes later when they were washing themselves in the dormitory, “that Amanda has entered for the composition prize?”

The girls looked at her unbelievingly.

“Amanda!” cried Billie, laughing at the absurdity of the thing. “Why, Amanda can hardly write her own name. You know that.”

“Of course I know it,” agreed Vi, scrubbing her face vigorously. “That’s why it seems so silly. Unless she has something up her sleeve,” she added meaningly.

“How did you find out?” asked Laura, curling up on the bed and regarding her chum severely. “Did she tell you?”

“Tell me!” repeated Vi with a chuckle. “That isa good one. No, I just happened to overhear her telling Eliza that she had entered for the composition prize and that she was going to give Billie Bradley the surprise of her life.”

“She surely does love me,” sighed Billie, as she pulled her pretty curls into place. “I don’t see why she doesn’t pick on somebody else for a change.”

“Well, you’d better look out, that’s all,” said Vi, wrinkling her forehead seriously. “I’m almost sure she is planning some crooked work, and it’s up to us to double cross her.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Laura delightedly. “And Vi is the one who is always calling me down for using slang. Fine for a beginner, Vi darling. Keep it up.”

The result of this revelation of Vi’s was to make the girls watch Amanda and the “Shadow” more carefully than ever before. And if it had not been for just this watchfulness there is no telling what might have happened to Billie Bradley, and through her, to her classmates.

And this was the way it happened.

Luckily for the three North Bend chums, Amanda and her “Shadow” shared the dormitory with them and Rose Belser. And so it was that Billie, coming in unexpectedly one day heard the very end of a sentence spoken in a loud whisper by Amanda. And though it was only the end of the sentence, it told a great deal to Billie, whose suspicions had already been aroused.

“ – at ten to-night, in Miss Race’s room,” were the words she caught. The fact that Amanda stopped speaking at sight of her and grew an unsightly brick red, gave Billie further proof that the girl was plotting mischief. Very probably the scapegoat was to be – herself.

She gave no sign that she had heard anything out of the ordinary, but when she had found the book she had come for and was out in the hall once more, her heart was pounding heavily and her face was hot.

Ever since they had come to Three Towers Amanda had done her best to discredit Billie. She had not succeeded so far, but some time she might. Was this the time? thought Billie, a dull rage taking possession of her.

No! She would not let Amanda get the better of her. She would outwit her, now that she had been warned. Then a dreadful thought came to her.

Suppose Amanda, thinking she had given her secret away, postponed her miserable plot, whatever it was, until another time? No wonder Billie answered questions queerly that afternoon, so queerly, in fact, that one teacher asked her if she were ill and would like to be excused!

But Billie did not want to be excused – that would mean more time to herself to think. And so she blundered through the miserable afternoon and her heart jumped with relief when the last gong sounded that meant liberty.

Connie and Laura overtook her in the hall on the way to the dormitory and Laura looked actually anxious.

“What was the matter with you this afternoon?” she asked. “Why, you answered ‘no’ three times when it should have been ‘yes,’ and it sounded so silly I’d have had to laugh if I hadn’t been scared to death!”

“What is it, Billie?” added Connie, putting an arm about her friend. “You look dreadfully white. Aren’t you feeling well?”

Then, pulling them into a secluded corner of the dormitory, Billie told them what she had heard, and as Vi came in just as she had finished, she had to tell it all over again, just for her benefit.

Of course the girls were all angry, and Laura wanted to go and have it out with Amanda at once, but Billie, who had had all the afternoon to think out the best thing to do, commanded her to say nothing about it to any one.

“Listen,” she said, tensely. “Somebody’s apt to come in at any minute, and then I can’t say it. This is what we will do to-night.

“We’ll pull our nighties on over our clothes, get into bed and pretend to go to sleep. Then we’ll wait till Amanda starts whatever she’s going to do, and we’ll follow her and see what she’s up to.”

“And then,” said Laura, driven to more forceful slang by the necessity for emphasis, “we’ll just aboutsettle her!”

True to their plans, they retired to the dormitory that night before Amanda or the “Shadow” or Rose Belser arrived there, and they hurriedly slipped their nightgowns over their clothes and got into bed.

“Poor Connie’s wailing her heart out,” chuckled Laura, “because she’s in another dorm and can’t be in at the death. I say, Vi, push the collar of your dress down. It shows outside your nightie.”

“Sh-h,” warned Billie. “I hear somebody coming – ”

The somebody proved to be no other than Amanda and Eliza, and when they entered they found Billie and Laura and Vi sleeping peacefully with a cherubic expression of utter innocence on their faces.

It seemed to the girls that they had never lived through an hour so long as that between nine o’clock and ten that night. And it was with more than relief that they heard a slight stir at last and saw a shadowy figure slip out of bed and make noiselessly for the door. And while they held their breath for fear their breathing might betray them, they saw a second shadow flit after the first one. “The Shadow,” in fact!