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

“Now for the fun!” cried Laura, as a few minutes later they stepped out into the crisp air. “Whew! I think we got off lots better than we expected. I thought Miss Walters would be awfully mad.”

“Probably she would have been if she hadn’t had so many other things to worry about,” said Vi.

“Poor Connie!” said Billie. “It surely is too bad about her watch. It was a beauty, and she was so proud of it.”

“I hope Miss Walters finds the thief pretty soon,” said Laura, frowning. “Everybody thinks it is one of the girls, and I’m even beginning to feel guilty myself.”

“Do you think – ” Vi began, then flushed as the girls looked at her and stopped.

“What?” asked Laura adding, as Vi still hesitated. “Come on – we won’t eat you.”

“Nothing – only – I was wondering if the thief might not be Amanda.”

“Oh, no,” cried Billie quickly. “I’m sure it couldn’t be, Vi.”

The suggestion from Vi startled her, and it troubled her too, for the very reason that the same idea had been in her own mind.

And suddenly Laura spoke up in support of Vi.

“I shouldn’t wonder if Vi is right,” she said. “Amanda is mean enough for anything.”

Billie had no answer for that, and so she said nothing. But she was more than ever troubled.

As they neared the little white cottage that had seen so much trouble, they forgot Amanda in anticipation of Polly Haddon’s joy at the good news they were bringing her.

They knocked on the door, and the moment it was opened pushed eagerly inside and turned to face the astonished widow.

Billie started to speak, but Laura, with her usual impulsiveness, was before her.

“We’ve got good news, Mrs. Haddon,” she blurted out. “We’ve found your lost invention.”

Billie gasped with dismay as Mrs. Haddon turned deathly white and grasped the back of a chair for support.

“Oh, Laura, you shouldn’t!” cried Billie, as she put an arm about the woman and helped her into a chair. “Get some water, quick! There’s a glass in the sink.”

But Mrs. Haddon brushed her impatiently aside.

“I’m not going to faint,” she said brusquely. “Tell me why you said that. Hurry!”

But Laura thought she had done enough speechmaking for one day, and it was Billie who answered the woman’s questions.

“It must be ours,” said the latter, at last. “I will go with you and make sure. Peter? Yes, he will be all right till I get back. He is much better. I will be ready in a moment.”

She returned in less than a minute, a hat perched carelessly on her head and a shawl around her shoulders. Her eyes burned bright in her thin face.

No one spoke on the way back. Mrs. Haddon, her lips set and her eyes fixed straight ahead, said not a word, and the girls were too awed by her emotion to break the silence.

Miss Walters met them in the hall, said a few words to Mrs. Haddon, then, seeing that the woman was keyed to the breaking point, led the way straight to the tower room.

The girls ran up the ladder ahead of the two older women. The latter followed more slowly. Billie pushed open the little door and entered the room.

Then she started, gasped, rubbed her hand across her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming. For the spot where the queer wooden machinery had stood was empty. The invention was gone; and the blue prints were gone, too!

CHAPTER XXI – MORE MYSTERY

Billie Bradley turned cold all over. To have brought Polly Haddon here – to have practically promised her a fortune – and then to find – nothing!

“Billie! They’re gone!” said a voice at her elbow, and she turned sharply to find Laura and Vi peering inquisitively over her shoulder.

“I know they’re gone,” she cried, almost sobbing in her rage and disappointment “Oh, girls, what, can we do? We can’t tell Mrs. Haddon – ”

“What’s this you can’t tell me?” asked Polly Haddon herself, and Billie looked at the woman miserably.

“The model,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. “It was here yesterday, and now it’s gone.”

“Gone!” cried Miss Walters sharply. “How can that be? Is it possible that somebody else is in the habit of visiting this tower?”

But Mrs. Haddon pushed her aside.

“Do you mean that the model is gone – again – after bringing me here?” she cried wildly. “Oh, you could not be so cruel, you could not!” The last word caught in a sob, and Miss Walters put an arm about her compassionately.

“Listen to me a moment,” she said, in a gentle voice of authority. “If the girls are certain that the machinery and the blueprints were here as late as yesterday – ”

“Oh, we are, we are!” cried Billie eagerly.

“Then whoever has taken them since could not have got very far away with them in this short time,” she went on reassuringly. “Your husband’s invention – if indeed it was his model the girls found here – must still be in this neighborhood, perhaps in this very building. Though who,” she added thoughtfully, “in this place could wish to steal such a thing is indeed a mystery.”

“Oh, Miss Walters!” cried Billie eagerly, “I’m sure nobody here in the Hall has stolen the invention. Nobody would have any use for it, and besides, it isn’t a thing that could be hidden very easily.”

Suddenly Laura had what she thought was a bright idea.

“Maybe somebody stole it who had a grudge against Mrs. Haddon,” she suggested.

Miss Walters looked inquiringly at the woman who had drawn away from her embrace and was wiping her eyes resignedly.

“Is there any one you know of who might hold a grudge against your family?” Miss Walters asked.

Mrs. Haddon went over to one of the dust-begrimed windows and stood there for a moment looking out, her fingers tapping a restless tattoo on the windowpane. Then she slowly shook her head.

“No, I can’t think of any one,” she said, adding bitterly: “We were too poor and unimportant to make enemies of any one. But what does it matter?” She turned quickly from the window with one of her fierce changes of mood. “The invention is gone. I was a fool to think that any good fortune would ever come to me. Let me go home.”

She brushed fiercely past Miss Walters, but the latter put out a gentle hand and detained her.

“Wait a little,” she begged. Her heart ached for the other woman’s suffering. “Come into my office with me while I make inquiries and find out if any suspicious person has been seen about here lately. I am confident,” she added with an assurance that reached the other woman, “that before long we shall be able to recover your property. Will you trust me and believe that I want to help you?”

“Yes,” said Polly Haddon, faint hope once more stirring in her heart. “You are more than kind to me.”

With what different emotions the classmates left the tower room from those with which they had entered it so hopefully only a few minutes before.