Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma

Billie tried the door and found it unlocked. Feeling like the most desperate of conspirators, she opened the door and slipped inside, motioning to Vi to follow her.

“We’ll have to be quick,” she whispered. “Maria may come back at any time.”

The room contained a bed, a dresser, a washstand, two chairs and a trunk.

“You take the dresser,” Billie directed. “I’ll attend to the trunk.”

The trunk was opened, but on lifting the lid, Billie found it almost empty. A brief search served to assure her that nothing was there.

Vi had a little luck with the dresser. She unearthed fifteen dollars in bills, but at sight of them Billie shook her head in disappointment.

“No good, if we don’t find more than that,” she said.

At the moment there came a soft, insistent scratching at the door, the agreed-upon signal that trouble was brewing.

Billie slammed down the trunk lid. Vi shoved things into the dresser drawer. Outside the room they found Laura and Edina in an agony of impatience.

“Some one is coming! Hurry!”

They whisked about a turn in the corridor just in time to avoid the person whose room they had ransacked. Careful to keep themselves hidden, they watched Maria Tatgood go into her room and shut the door.

When Billie’s companions would have slipped away, anxious to get back to the dormitory, she detained them.

“Let’s watch for awhile,” she proposed. “We may see something of interest. You never can tell.”

Billie afterwards said that her suggestion was prompted by a “hunch.” Be that as it may, the fact remains that Maria Tatgood emerged from her room almost immediately, wearing hat and coat as though ready for an outing. She turned down the corridor toward the servants’ entrance to the Hall.

“Come along!” said Billie impulsively. “Let’s follow her!”

CHAPTER XXV

CAUGHT – CONCLUSION

Billie Bradley and her three companions were without wraps, though they were too excited to think of that. Also, they had had no time to inform the boys at Boxton Military Academy as to their purpose and enlist their help. They were too excited to think of that, either.

They followed Maria Tatgood, always at a discreet distance, through the school gates and along the dusty road.

“Where do you suppose she’s going?” Laura whispered.

“Home!” said Billie “I’ve a notion we are going to make a real discovery this time!”

Maria Tatgood lived in an old house, set well back from the road and surrounded by tall trees. There had been no attempt to cut the grass that grew in reedy abundance to the very steps of the porch. The house itself was in a state of considerable disrepair. A little carpentry work and a coat or two of paint would have made it a much more habitable place.

All these things impressed themselves more or less vividly on the minds of the girls as they watched Maria Tatgood ascend the worn steps of the porch and disappear into the house.

The day had turned dismal and chill. The sun had disappeared under the clouds that by this time had risen from a streak low on the western horizon and covered the zenith. A light, misty rain was falling. There among the trees it was gloomy and dark.

Evidently, the occupants of the house were also in semi-darkness, for, as the girls watched, they saw a light flash up in a room at the rear. From this same room presently came the sound of angry voices.

Billie tugged Vi’s sleeve.

“Come along! Tell Laura and Edina. The folks inside have forgotten to pull the shade down at that window. Thanks to them, we can both see and hear.”

Silently, keeping to the shelter of the trees, the girls crept toward that lighted window. The angry voices were becoming intelligible. The girls could hear phrases, scraps of sentences.

“You’ve spent it! You had no business – ”

“I had no business, didn’t I? I like that! Ain’t I your mother?”

Billie put finger to lips in a gesture of caution and crept closer to the window. Laura pinched Vi’s arm. Edina’s face looked very white in the dusk.

“Just the same,” came the younger voice sullenly, “you ain’t keepin’ to your end of the bargain. We was to split, wasn’t we?”

“Split, is it?” The voice of the older woman rose waspishly. “I should have the big half, anyways. Ain’t I your mother?”

“It was me took all the risks. It was that way in the old days, too, wasn’t it? It was me opened the pocketbooks of the rich women in the stores while you took the money I got out of ’em! Well, it ain’t goin’ to be so no more. We split, or I quit!”

A sullen silence fell upon the room and its occupants. Outside the girls held their breath to listen. After a moment the more youthful voice continued:

“How much you got left of the money?”

“Two hundred dollars. That’s all exceptin’ a few cents in silver – a half a dollar, maybe.”

“You’ve already spent sixty dollars? Well, if that ain’t a rum go!”

Suddenly Edina clutched Billie’s arm.

“Quick! Hide!” she cried. “Somebody’s comin’!”

The watchers had barely time to gain the shelter of the trees when a thick-set figure loomed up through the gloom. A man brushed past them, a man with hunched shoulders and a week’s growth of stubble on his face.

This person stumped around to the rear of the house, a door opened and closed, and soon the two voices within the room were joined by a third.

“Hello, you cats at it ag’in, scratchin’ and clawin’? Where’s my dinner? That’s what I’d like to know. When are you goin’ to git me some grub?”

Billie turned to her companions. They could see her eyes shining in the dull light.

“We’ve heard enough!’” she whispered. “Let’s be getting back.”

They fairly ran down the road to Three Towers Hall. They were scarcely aware that they were cold and dishevelled and pretty well soaked by the misty drizzle. In their minds two facts loomed paramount. They had positively identified Maria Tatgood as the thief, and two hundred dollars of the Gift Club fund still remained in the custody of the unsavory Tatgood family. If they hurried, they still might save that two hundred dollars.

Up the steps of the school they rushed and into the hall, to be met by a group of horrified girls.

“Where have you been?”

“To the wars, if looks count for anything!”

“You big sillies! You are soaked through!”