“Billie, can you put on new tires?” demanded Ben, somewhat anxiously, making a mental determination to learn all about the mechanism of motor cars before he went on another motor trip.
The others stood back rather helplessly. Merry, especially, felt stupid and uncomfortable in having to stand aside and let a girl do all the work.
“Of course, I can,” replied Billie, trying to speak cheerfully, as a low cannonading of thunder rumbled in the distance. “I have done it dozens of times, only it will take time, of course. The tools are under the seat. Hustle up, everybody. Charlie, you get the new tires. Ben, you help me.”
In a few moments Ben and Billie were kneeling on the ground adjusting the tire of the first wheel, while Charlie and Merry were engaged in examining the extra tires, which the motorcarried in case of accident, and Percy made himself as useful as possible, unpacking all the wraps, Billie’s oilskin coat and cap and the rubber blankets.
“Billie,” announced Charlie, “there are only three good tires here. The fourth has a puncture. It’s only a small one, but——”
“I know,” interrupted Billie, looking extremely worried. “It was an imperfect one. I may be able to patch it.”
Then Charlie and Merry held a whispered conference and disappeared around the bluff.
“What’s up?” asked Ben, looking over his shoulder at their retreating figures.
But nobody could answer the question. The girls were getting into their ulsters and Percy was arranging the rubber blankets and rugs in the car.
“What a confoundedly low, mean trick of that fellow to do this,” he kept saying to himself, keeping one eye on the black clouds piling up and the other on Billie and Ben. He figured that it would take an hour and a half at least to get all four tires on and, he thought, Billie would be apretty smart girl to do it that quickly. It was half-past three o’clock.
“What about that ferry,” he said to himself.
At last they were pumping up the third tire. It seemed an age to those who were idly looking on. The girls sat in a row on the side of the road, their hands folded patiently in their laps, while Percy paced up and down, watching the top of the bluff uneasily.
“Where are Charlie and Merry?” he said at last, unable to conceal his anxiety any longer.
“Idiots,” exclaimed Nancy. “Haven’t we enough to worry us?”
While she spoke there came a blinding flash of lightning and a clap of thunder seemed to split the heavens in two.
Nancy hid her face on Elinor’s shoulder. Billie and Ben kept on working steadily. They had reached the fourth tire now and Billie had managed to patch the punctured place just as the first great drops of rain began to fall.
“Where are those boys?” Ben called over his shoulder, not stopping to look up.
“I’ll call them,” said Percy, and running to the top of the cliff he began to halloo and whistle.
It had grown suddenly so dark that they thought the sun must have set an hour earlier than usual. A cold wind sprang up and whizzed through the pines with a sound that made them shiver.
“Hurrah, it’s done!” cried Billie triumphantly, just as a driving wall of rain struck her in the face. “Get in, girls, quick,” she shouted, as she slipped on her oil skins. “Boys, where are you? Crank up, Ben.”
Suddenly, in the midst of the din and racket of the storm, came a wild halloo. Charlie and Merry appeared, running down the road toward the motor car, and six men were following them, shouting and gesticulating.
“Get in as fast as you can,” commanded Ben, and the girls will never forget the terror of that moment as they tumbled into the car.
The booming of the sea in the caves, the cannonading of the thunder, the sharp whistle of the wind in the tops of the trees, and the shouts of the men! But in the midst of it all came thekindly, cheering whir of the motor engine. Billie could have kissed the faithful “Comet” on his broad, good-natured forehead for his loyalty at this moment, when they most needed him. As Charlie and Merry leaped onto the step, she threw in the clutch, and they were off just as the first man reached the car, brandishing a long knife and yelling hoarsely.
The boys climbed over into the back, too tired to speak. Merry had a black eye and Charlie had a bloody nose.
“Billie, the next ferry is Payne’s,” called Percy. “It’s about a mile from here. Go straight ahead.”
And Billie, sticking to her wheel like a good pilot, ducked her head and guided the flying motor along the slippery road.
They seemed hardly to have taken breath before they reached Payne’s landing and found it empty and deserted of every human being who had ever ventured into that lonely place.
“We’ll have to try for the next ferry landing then,” said Percy, dejectedly. “It’s back toward Flag Point.”
Without a word, Billie turned the car, and puttingon all speed they whizzed through the rain. At that moment she had only one prayer in her heart: to pilot her friends safely through the storm and get them to the ferry landing. There was no sign of any of their pursuers as they passed the fort. When at last they reached the second summer encampment they breathed a sigh of relief. The ferry boat was docked at the landing and a man stood under the shed, his hands in his pockets.
Billie drew up at the entrance.
“Captain, will you take us on?” called Ben. He always called boatmen and conductors captain. He found it pleased them, but this man did not reply and still stood with his back turned looking out on the now angry strip of water between Seven League Island and the mainland.
Ben shouted and they all shouted together, but the man was as unmoved as a wooden statue.
“He’s deaf,” said Billie. “Get out and shake him.”
Ben jumped out and shook the man’s shoulder, who, with a strange guttural sound, turned slowly around.
“And dumb,” exclaimed Ben, indicating with violent motions first the automobile and then the ferry-boat.
The deaf mute shook his head and pointed in the direction of Flag Point. They offered him money, tried persuasion, threats, prayers, which he could not hear, and finally ended by dashing off toward the last ferry.
“It’s our only chance,” said Ben, “but we’ll get over in that if we have to use force.”
Meantime, the island, lashed by the storm, looked bleak and cold, and they wondered they could ever have admired it at all. Crouched under the rubber covers, they shivered with chill, while Billie, on the front seat, Ben and Percy beside her always on the lookout, with clinched teeth and hands gripped to the wheel, guided them through the hurricane. It seemed to her they must be riding on the very wings of the wind, and the speedometer announced fifty miles an hour.
As they dashed through the straggling little street of that forlorn village of Flag Point, the few indifferent natives who braved the winterson the island looked out of their windows in wonder. It seemed to them that a streak of red lightning had flashed through the storm.
“Cheer up, all of you, our troubles are over,” called Ben. “The ferry-boat’s at the landing.”
The old boat seemed like a haven of rest when they pulled into the shelter of its alley for wagons and motor cars.
“Captain, why didn’t you tell us that this was the only ferry running?” demanded Ben of the wrinkled old man.
“Because I don’t never answer questions that ain’t first been put to me,” replied the laconic boatman.
“Don’t scold him,” said Billie, wiping streams of water from her face. “Any one who is obliged to live in a God-forsaken, wretched place like Seven League Island couldn’t be supposed to have any human interest. I imagine they all get to be like their own flinty rocks, hard, sharp, and ugly.”
“Well, bloody nose and blacky eye,” put in Percy, “it’s about time for you to give an account of yourselves.”
“Yes,” said the others, who had been so stunned by the fast ride through the storm and the race for the ferry that they had almost forgotten what had happened.
“When we found,” began Merry, “that one of the tires had a puncture, Charlie and I thought we might as well make that low, scoundrelly thief who slashed the tires pay back with one of those he had stolen from Mr. Butler. So we chased over to Smugglers’ Cave, but it took longer than we had expected, because we had taken the wrong path and had to crawl around a precipice and jump over crags like two mountain goats.”
“Don’t forget to tell that your pirate brigantine was anchored out in the harbor,” put in Charlie. “We supposed it was lying up to get out of the storm, but we had another think coming——”
“Yes, I guess you will all listen to me, next time,” went on Merry. “That was the most piratical-looking band of fellows with their knives and their red handkerchiefs as I ever saw in a story book. Well, we did get to the cave at last and found it as empty as it was before. Charliehad a chisel in his pocket. You know, he is the human tool box, and with that and a piece of stone we managed to loosen some of the boards. But there wasn’t a tire or anything else connected with an automobile inside the box. You’ll never guess what the boxes were filled with. Something about as foreign to a motor car, except in sound, when a tire bursts, as a caterpillar.”
“You don’t mean guns?” demanded Ben.
“We certainly do. Rifles by the dozens packed in all the boxes we had time to open.”
“We were chumps,” interrupted Charlie. “If we had stopped sooner, I never would have had this bloody nose.”
“Well, haven’t I got a black eye?” demanded his friend.
“What happened? What happened?” cried Percy impatiently.
“While we were tinkering with the boxes, we heard the sharpest, loudest whistle I ever heard in my life, and we both lit out and ran. I was in front and just as I got to the mouth of the cave, a one-eyed, one-armed ruffian leapt out at me. His one arm was as strong as most men’s two,but he couldn’t beat Charlie and me together, although he gave me this little souvenir and he planted his fist on Charlie’s nose. While we were fighting, a boat from the ship with six sailors in it landed below. They came tearing up the steps like a lot of bloodhounds, and Charlie and I had a run for our lives. Didn’t we, midget?”
Charlie acknowledged the fact gravely. There was no denying that the two boys had been in a very dangerous situation.
“We were ready just in the nick of time, too,” said Billie. “If Ben hadn’t cranked up, we’d have had those men on us in another minute.”
It was good to be on land again, even though it wasn’t dry land, and the ride home, safe and swift, was blissful after the dangers and excitement of that thrilling picnic.
It seemed that Seven League Island must have been the very centre of the hurricane and that West Haven had only been visited with a heavy shower. Miss Campbell, therefore, was spared any great anxiety.
But, oh, the joy of drawing up to the cheerful blaze of the wood fire, while eight youthfuladventurers related a somewhat softened version of the events of the day! Then the supper that followed, in Miss Campbell’s big, old-fashioned dining room, with fried chicken and hot biscuits and omelette as light as a feather, and strawberry jam that took the prize at the county fair!
But best of all was what Merry did at the last, when, notwithstanding his stiff joints and bandaged eye, he rose from his seat and cried:
“Hip, hip, hurrah! Three cheers for Billie, the pluckiest chauffeur that ever ran a motor car.”
And all the rest joined in, even Miss Campbell, who clapped her hands and cried:
“Three cheers for my dear, dear Billie.”
Then Billie cried:
“Three cheers for Ben because he never said ‘I told you so,’ about the rain.”
That very night, before he went to his own home, Ben called at Mr. Richard Butler’s house and told him the story of the bogus automobile supplies marked with the name of Butler Brothers.
There was a great telegraphing and telephoning by longdistance. The Butler Brothers were very excited and angry, just as their niece had predicted they would be. Detectives were engaged and other ships warned to keep a sharp lookout, but nothing was heard of the pirate brigantine.
Never since she had been Principal of West Haven High School had Miss Gray been so upset as she was now. For the first time a scandal was connected with her beloved institution. Every day there was a new complaint.
“Miss Gray, I only left my ring on the washstand a minute, while I was washing my hands, and when I looked for it, it was gone,” said one girl.
“But who was in the washroom, Julia?” asked the Principal wearily. She was disgusted and angry with this troublesome situation.
“Oh, all the girls, Miss Gray, but nobody saw any one take it.”
Small purses containing lunch money were emptied of their contents and put back into jacket pockets. Some of the teachers lost money and Miss Gray herself was robbed of ten dollars, thewages of the old janitor, which she had placed under a paper weight on the desk, in her own private office.
The whole school had gone distracted, but the pilferer was too clever to be caught.
Twice Miss Gray had summoned Mary Price to her office, but, after looking gravely into the young girl’s serious eyes, she kissed her and sent her off on some improvised errand.
“I shall wait a few days,” the Principal said. “After all, there may be some mistake.”
And it was then that she determined to try an experiment.
One bleak autumn afternoon a thick, wet mist rolled in from the ocean and enveloped the town of West Haven so densely that it seemed like a city floating on a bank of cloud. Only the dim outline of objects twenty yards away could be seen and the muffled call of the fog horn at the lighthouse on the Black Reefs sounded its dismal warning through the mist.
Billie and Mary were hurrying arm in arm down the street in earnest conversation. Notwithstandingit was after school hours, they were going toward the High School.
“Do you think we can get it, Mary?” Billie was saying.
“Oh, yes, the janitor always leaves the door to the basement corridor open until evening for Miss Gray and the teachers who sometimes stay late.”
“It was stupid of me to have left that horrid old algebra, but you know I always forget the things I don’t like. If Miss Finch hadn’t called me down so thoroughly this morning about my average in mathematics, I would just let the lesson for to-morrow go, or if Miss Finch were only Miss Allbright, or Miss anybody else but just a stern, animated mathematical cube.”
“She’s all right if you know your lessons,” said Mary, smiling. “It’s only the ones who don’t study hard enough to suit her who call her a human arithmetic.”
The door to the corridor was open, as Mary had predicted, and the girls entered, their footsteps resounding with a hollow echo through the empty place.
“‘I feel like one who treads alone some banquet halldeserted,’” quoted Billie. “Could anything be more ghostly than a deserted school?”
“It’s not deserted,” said Nancy. “I heard voices somewhere, I am certain of it, just as you opened the door.”
They paused and listened for a moment, but the place was as still as a tomb. A dim gas-light burned in the long corridor, on each side of which were the arched entrances to the locker rooms of the various classes, wash rooms and Miss Gray’s own private office.
“It reminds me of the catacombs in this light,” whispered Billie. “I’m almost afraid of the sound of my own voice.”
The girls slipped silently down the passage to the stairway leading to the class rooms. At her desk in the sophomore study room on the third floor Billie found her algebra. As she gathered together some of her scattered papers in the not over tidy interior of the little one-seated desk form, and searched for a certain favorite stubby pencil which she claimed brought her good luck with her problems, Mary at her own desk gave a cry of dismay and sat down limply.
“What was it, a mouse?” asked Billie, her voice sounding quite loud in the empty room.
“Oh, Billie, Billie, no, it was not a mouse. It was fifty dollars,” cried Mary. “I found it just now in my desk.”
“Fifty dollars?” echoed Billie, slipping her algebra into her pocket and hurrying over to her friend’s desk. “Are you playing a trick on me, Mary?”
“Listen, Billie,” said Mary. “I’m going to tell you something. I believe I am the victim of some kind of conspiracy. You know of course about all of the things that have been stolen from school lately?”
“Yes, but I haven’t had any losses myself; so I haven’t talked about it much to the others.”
“Of course you had no idea that I was supposed to be the thief,” Mary went on, with a sort of dry sob in her voice that was more heart-breaking to Billie than real weeping would have been.
Mary told her the story of Fannie Alta and the twenty dollars.
“I didn’t tell it before,” she continued, “becauseI was so ashamed somehow, I couldn’t bear for any one to know it.”
Billie’s heart swelled with indignation.
“The little wretch,” she exclaimed, “you should have gone straight to Miss Gray about it, Mary.”
“I know it, and I am sorry now I didn’t, but I thought she wouldn’t dare do it again, and she hasn’t, but things are disappearing all the time, and I believe she has told it around school that I took the twenty dollars and all the other things. Nobody has said anything, of course, but I can’t help feeling that they are all whispering about me whenever my back is turned.”
“You poor, blessed child,” exclaimed her friend. “And all this time you have been keeping it secret and suffering in silence.”
Mary nodded her head.
“And the worst of it is, Miss Gray suspects me too. But she is not going to say anything until she is sure. I thought of talking to her about it, but it would look as if I had a guilty conscience to complain before I am accused.”
“How dare any one suspect you of stealing,” cried Billie, putting her arms around her friendand kissing her warmly. “Would Miss Gray or any one else be so stupid as to take the word of Fannie Alta before yours?”
“But nobody has said anything that I know of,” groaned poor Mary. “It’s all in the air. That is why I don’t know what to do. Suppose after all I was mistaken and they didn’t suspect me. Suppose I took this money to Miss Gray and suppose she would think that I had taken all the other things and was just returning this because I had lost my nerve and suppose—suppose——”
“But, Mary,” remonstrated Billie, “why suppose anything at all so awful? Why not suppose that Miss Gray will listen to you and believe every word you say. You are perfectly innocent and nothing on earth can make you guilty. Of course Fannie Alta must have left the money in your desk, though where she got so much is a mystery to me.”
“But I tell you I am frightened, Billie. Such wretched things do happen and innocent people often suffer for guilty ones.”
“Nonsense, Mary, you must not lose yournerve in this way. Take the money and go straight to Miss Gray with it now. I will go with you.”
The two girls gathered their things together silently. Mary put the roll of money in her jacket pocket and they made for the door. It was almost dark now and the rows of empty desks down the big room were like kneeling phantoms in the half light.
“Did you hear anything?” whispered Mary as they reached the door.
“I heard a step,” answered Billie in a low voice. “It was probably the janitor.”
With a mutual impulse they clasped hands and a wave of fear swept over them when they found that the door would not open.
“It must have stuck,” whispered Mary. “Try it again.”
But the door was locked fast.
“There is only one way for you to get back the key to the door, young ladies,” said a voice so near to them that they both jumped back as if they had been struck in the face.
The person who had spoken had been standingflat against the wall at the side of the door. He emerged from the shadows, as quietly as a shadow itself, and in the twilight his long, lank figure seemed almost to be floating in space. The small black mask which covered his face and his whole appearance reminded Billie of a gruesome picture she had once seen called “The Black Masque.”
“You have a small sum of money there,” he went on, “which you evidently do not wish to keep and which I would be pleased to have and can use at once. By a strange coincidence, I happened to overhear your conversation, you see, and as the money appears to belong to nobody and is exactly the sum I require I must have it.”
Mary tried to speak, but her lips refused to form the words, and she had no voice left. There was a sound in Billie’s ears like the pounding of surf on the beach and she felt quite dizzy.
“This is fright,” she found herself saying, as a wave of homesickness for her father swept over her.
“Oh, papa, papa,” she whispered.
The man had seized Mary’s two hands in oneof his with a grip of steel, while with the other he felt in her jacket pocket, took the roll of money, pushed Billie roughly from the door, and with a laugh pulled back the bolt; there had been no key after all. The next instant he had slipped downstairs as softly as a cat and was gone.
The girls followed after him like two sleep walkers.
“We’ve been robbed, Billie,” moaned Mary, giving her dry sob. “The fifty dollars is gone. What shall we do now?”
Billie did not reply. She wanted to get out of that dark stuffy school building, and breathe in some fresh air before she dared trust her voice. It was good to feel the wet fog again in their faces as they hurried up the street.
“Why not still tell Miss Gray, Mary?” asked Billie at last, but already there was a feeling of doubt in her heart. It was certainly a very unlikely sounding story, a robber in the school room.
Suddenly a figure loomed up in the mist. It was Miss Gray herself.
“You are out late, girls,” she said as she hurried past, and for some reason they both had anuncomfortable feeling of having done something wrong.
Miss Gray hastened into the school building just as the janitor appeared to lock up.
“Jennings,” she said, “switch on the light in the sophomore study room. I shall only be there a moment.”
The janitor shuffled after her and turned on the light while Miss Gray opened Mary’s desk. She sighed deeply and shook her head.
“She must have got here before me,” she thought. “It was cruel to tempt the child at such a time as this when her mother is in great need of money. I felt so sure she would bring it straight to me and that was the only test I required. Oh, dear, what a crooked world this is. I am out fifty dollars. But how will the poor child ever explain all this money to her mother? She must have saved a good deal out of her pilfering——”
Miss Gray’s disconnected train of thought did not bring her any comfort, as she slowly descended the three flights of steps into the basement and plunged into the mist again.
“At least I shall wait a day or two,” she continued. “The child may think better of it. She might have stopped me this evening, though. At all events I deserve to lose the money. It was a silly, stupid impulse, but I was so sure—so very sure——”
The mist had grown so thick now that the Principal walked very slowly, keeping close to the fence in order to guide herself to the corner where she must turn to go to her own home. A voice reached her through the fog. Someone was coming up from behind.
“I have procured fifty, Señor, a curious lucky stroke, and from a schoolroom, too—would you have believed——” the voice broke off in a laugh.
“Be careful——” said another voice, and two figures passed Miss Gray in the fog and were swallowed up again immediately.
“Is it possible,” she exclaimed, “robbers in West Haven High School? What does it mean? And I have been blaming that innocent child. What an imbecile I have been!”
Her last resolution before sleep came to her that night was to notify the town police in themorning and hire a detective to stay about the High School day and night.
Imagine the surprise of the bewildered Principal, when, next morning bright and early, Mary Price, after a timid knock on the office door, came hesitatingly into the room.
“Miss Gray,” she said, “I found this money yesterday afternoon in my desk. I don’t know how it came there nor whose it is. But it would be better for you to take charge of it until the owner asks for it.”
Mary spoke quickly, as if she had learned the little speech carefully by heart. There was a strange expression on Miss Gray’s face as she took ten crisp new five-dollar bills from the young girl’s outstretched hand.
“This is not even the same money,” she thought, forgetting to answer Mary in her amazement. “Am I losing my senses or is the child a deep dyed villain?”
Mary flushed scarlet under the Principal’s steady gaze, but she did not lower her eyes, and there was not a sign of guilt in the expression of the sad little face.
“Very well, dear,” Miss Gray said at last.
Mary, as she closed the door behind her, was more mystified than Miss Gray.
“I should think she would have shown a little surprise,” she said.
“My Dear Miss Campbell:
Do you think your nice young charge would be bored by a visit to our lonely old home in the country? Percival has set his heart on giving a Hallowe’en house party for some of his particular friends, and I find Wilhelmina’s name the very first on the list. I shall promise to look after her in every way exactly as if she were my own child, guard her from draughts, see that she has plenty of covering on her bed and that she wears her overshoes if the ground is damp.
My boy would be quite inconsolable, and I should too, my dear friend, if she is not to be among our guests. I cannot offer many inducements except the pleasure which young people always bring to a house, but I candidly believe that Percival would give up the idea if she should not be able to come.
Most cordially yours,
Antoinette Juliana St. Clair.”
Miss Campbell smiled as she handed the note to Billie one morning at the breakfast table. The two fanciful names of the good-natured, cordial widow always amused her.
“The lonely old home in the country,” so modestly referred to, was one of the finest places in the county, and nothing was more coveted by the young people in West Haven than an invitation to one of Percival’s house parties, where everything that the widow and her son could devise was done for the amusement of the guests.
“Of course you must go, dear. I wouldn’t have you miss it for worlds. The change will do you good. I have been troubled about you lately, my child, and if this invitation had not come, I was going to insist on your seeing the doctor. I don’t think your liver has been behaving itself. You have been so out of sorts. But perhaps a little amusement will be better for you than a calomel pill.”
“Oh, I am quite well, Cousin Helen,” exclaimed Billie. “It’s mathematics, I suppose, that affects my liver.”
But Billie was more eager than she would admit to acceptMrs. St. Clair’s invitation. The truth is, the young girl’s conscience had not been easy lately. She felt that she had done something which would have grieved and displeased her father and she could not be perfectly happy until she had confessed her sins and been forgiven.
You perhaps have guessed already that the ten new five-dollar bills which Mary Price had consigned to Miss Gray’s care the morning after the robbery in the school room, was Billie’s money.
“You shall take it, Mary,” she insisted. “Aren’t we exactly the same as sisters? I don’t want the money, and I know papa would be glad if he knew.”
Billie had finally agreed with Mary that it would only make matters more complicated to tell Miss Gray that fifty dollars some one had placed in Mary’s desk, no doubt to tempt or catch her, as in the case of the twenty dollars, had been stolen by a robber almost immediately.
Older and wiser people would have told Billie that this was a very poor piece of advice, and the deed was no sooner accomplished than the twogirls themselves realized that they had made a mistake. Miss Gray’s manner to Mary was cold and formal and the situation was not in the least relieved. The unhappy girl had hoped that the principal would speak to her again about the money, but the subject was never mentioned.
“It was all my fault, Mary. I advised you and forced you to do it. It was not exactly dishonest, but it wasn’t sincere, and I am beginning to think Miss Gray is suspicious of me, too.”
Another thing had happened which made Billie uncomfortably and extremely ill at ease in her mind. Burglars had broken into Mrs. Price’s home, but they had only succeeded in giving Mary and her mother a great fright, and had taken nothing.
In her heart Billie knew what the robbers really wanted. It was the box of jewels locked up in Mrs. Price’s safe.
“I have done wrong,” she kept saying to herself. “Papa always said that my heart ruled my head and that I had no judgment. I should never have burdened Mary and Mrs. Price with that wretched box. I am almost superstitiousabout it, because it brings so much bad luck on people. After the house party, I shall take it away.”
As a matter of fact, everything was postponed until after the house party, and the world for eight young people seemed to stand still. The English nation could not look forward with greater eagerness to the Coronation than our four Motor Maids and their friends to Percy’s Hallowe’en house party. It was only a part of the good fortune which always followed Percy that Hallowe’en that year fell on Friday, and that the weather was perfect.
They were to have three evenings of fun and frolic with the Hallowe’en ball on Friday night.
In the joy of anticipation and preparation, Billie and Mary lost sight of their troubles. Nancy was bubbling over with delight and Elinor forgot her usual sense of dignity and gave an indecorous exhibition of happiness by doing a Dutch twirl all by herself.
“Of course, we shall all go in ‘The Comet,’” announced Billie. “It will be lots more fun than driving behind those poky old carriage horsesthat bring Percy and Mrs. St. Clair in to church every Sunday.”
“Of course,” echoed the others.
There was, indeed, only one flaw in their happiness. Mrs. St. Clair, who was intimate with the Rogers family, had insisted on inviting Belle Rogers.
“Who cares?” exclaimed Billie. “She can’t interfere with our good time and we certainly won’t interfere with hers.”
The St. Clair place was eight miles outside of West Haven on the main road. A long avenue bordered with immense pine trees led up to the commodious, comfortable old house which seemed to reflect from its shining windows the cheerful and hospitable character of its mistress.
And when the red motor pulled up in front of “Pine Lodge,” as the place was called, there was the mistress herself smiling in the doorway, making the most delightful picture of welcome Billie had ever seen.
“Think of going to a real house party at last,” exclaimed Billie, with a sigh of pleasure.
Percival rushed down to help them out; twocolored men servants carried in their luggage, and presently they found themselves standing before a glowing fire in the hall, which was quite big enough and broad enough to be a room itself.
“It is sweet of you to come out and cheer up two lonely country people, my dears,” Mrs. St. Clair was saying, as she kissed them all around twice. “You are really the nicest children. You must promise to tell me whatever you want, or if you are not warm enough. You know how draughty country houses are. Or if you are the least hungry or your beds are not comfortable or the water isn’t hot enough for your baths, or you wish any particular thing to eat——”
“Dear me,” laughed Billie, looking around her, “you make us feel like four visiting princesses, Mrs. St. Clair. I am sure we could never want for anything in this cheerful, lovely house.”
“Now, Mrs. St. Clair,” put in Elinor, “we all know perfectly well that all the chairs at Pine Lodge are easy and the beds are famous for being the most comfortable in the county.”
Mrs. St. Clair blushed with pleasure. Next tosaying nice things to people herself, she loved to have them say nice things to her.
“Percival, my darling, where are the others?” she demanded presently. “Isn’t Belle coming and what is the name of that little foreign girl she asked to bring with her?”
Percy grinned at his friends good-naturedly, when Merry seized a cushion from one of the long settees and began to rock it on his knees, and Charlie gave a silent imitation of a baby’s face in the act of crying. But he was used to these endearing names his mother heaped upon him, and he only replied:
“Give them time, mother; give them time. Remember they didn’t ride on a comet the same as this dashing company did. The foreign girl is Fannie Alta.”
“So it was, and it was sweet and thoughtful of Belle to want to bring her along. She described the poor little thing as being lonely and strange in West Haven.”
The girls exchanged astonished glances at this piece of news. Was it possible that Belle Rogersand the crafty little Spanish girl whom they instinctively distrusted were so intimate as this?
“Here comes Roly Poly McLane,” cried Percy, laughing, as he peered through a side light of the front door. “She’s as jolly and fat as a clown elephant in the circus.”
“Percy, my love,” remonstrated his mother, which slight show of disapproval was about as near as she ever got in her life to scolding him.
The boys raced down the hall to help Rosomond McLane out of the high trap in which she had driven over to Pine Lodge from her home a few miles away.
“Wait, Roly Poly, until Percy gets a derrick. It’s the only safe way to unload heavy bales,” cried Merry.
“Roly Poly,” said Percy, bowing politely, “these three noble friends have volunteered with me to help you get out. I offered to do it alone, but mother was afraid my young life would be crushed out of me, if anything should happen, you know, and——”
“Percival, my darling!” cried Mrs. St. Clair.
“Help me, indeed,” exclaimed Rosomond, witha jolly laugh that always started an echo of other jolly laughs. “Get out of my way all of you,” and she gave a flying leap from the trap and bounced as she hit the ground like a rubber ball.
“My dear Rosomond,” cried the widow, running down the steps to meet her, “don’t take any notice of these foolish boys. You wouldn’t seem the same dear, delightful Rosomond if you weighed a pound less.”
“Oh, I don’t mind them, Mrs. St. Clair. I’m used to it, you know. Father always calls me ‘Baby Elephant’ and ‘Jumbo,’ and the girls at school call me ‘Roly Poly,’ and Uncle Jim calls me ‘Fatty.’”
Several more boys appeared just then and the company followed Mrs. St. Clair into what she called the sitting room, a gay apartment with chintz curtains at the windows and chintz covered cushions in the deep wicker chairs. Here they had tea and chocolate and hot-buttered toast.
“You must eat plenty of food, you know,” Percy’s mother had admonished them, “because Iwarn you that you will need all your strength to put up with the fearful ordeals Percy has planned for to-night——”
“Mother,” broke in Percy, “you mustn’t tell. You will spoil all the fun.”
“I’m not telling, dear. I’m only warning. But you know those things that jump at you from behind——”
“Stop her quick, somebody,” cried her son, pretending to gag her mouth with a napkin.
It was all very gay and the room buzzed with talk and laughter when the door opened and a servant admitted Belle Rogers and Fannie Alta.
Mrs. St. Clair greeted the new visitors as hospitably as she had the others. She even kissed Fannie’s dark, foreign little face and called her “dear” and drew the girl down beside her on the sofa.
“I want you to feel perfectly at home,” she said. “It was so good of you to have come with Belle.”
She was really the most delightful, beaming, good-natured creature imaginable, but all her efforts could not disguise the change which seemedsuddenly to have taken place in the behavior of the others.
Somehow the laughter was less free, the talk less gay and jolly than it had been, and presently our four particular Motor Maids were glad for an excuse to go away with Percy and see the conservatories, while Belle and Fannie drank their tea with Mrs. St. Clair.
After that it was time to dress for dinner. A neat little maid had unpacked their bags and laid their best party dresses on the beds. They were very simple dresses indeed, and Nancy, at least, thought of floating blue chiffon draperies with a slight sigh of regret.
“Do you know, girls,” said Billie, as she tied a pink bow around Nancy’s bunch of curls, “I think we should all take lessons in cheerfulness from Mrs. St. Clair. She’s so happy because she always sees the best side of everything. Just see how nice she is to Belle and Fannie Alta, for instance.”
“With this beautiful house and all her money and such a nice, good-natured pink-cheeked boyfor a son, I think I could even admire Belle Rogers and Fannie Alta,” observed Mary.
Then Billie remembered that Mary and her mother were always troubled about money, and that Mrs. Price was the gentlest, sweetest woman she had ever known. She wondered if Mrs. St. Clair could ever be ruffled by disappointment and bad luck, or if everything were not exactly as it should be, if she would be the same placid, good-natured soul.
“I don’t see how you can play any gruesome Hallowe’en tricks in this house, Mrs. St. Clair,” said Billie later at the dinner table. “It’s the abode of cheerfulness. Look at this dining room, for instance. A skull and crossbones wouldn’t even look dismal against this white wainscoting and these pale yellow walls.”
“She’s trying to pump you, mother,” put in Percy. “Now don’t tell her anything.”
Mrs. St. Clair smiled archly. How pretty she looked, Billie thought, in her pink crepe dress, with a beautiful collar of pearls around her throat. Nothing would induce the widow to wear black, and, after a year or two of mourning, she had gone back to colors and cheerfulness.
“He has got some big surprises for you, my dear. I’ll only tell you this much. It will bequite as ghastly as you could possibly desire, and I hope nobody is wearing any clothes that will matter. Your dress, Miss Alta, I am afraid will spot if you do all the things Percy is planning for this evening. What a lovely frock, by the way. I think I have never seen a more beautiful dress for a young girl.”
All eyes were fastened on Fannie’s dress, and there was general surprise among the girls to see that Fannie was wearing an exquisite gown of pale blue satin with an over-dress of blue gauze, edged with narrow silver fringe. In her hair was a wreath of pink roses.
She was quite unembarrassed under the scrutiny of all these people, and smiled complacently at Mrs. St. Clair.
Nobody had taken much notice of Belle until now. They had supposed she had kept so unusually quiet because she was not in her own “set,” as she loved to call her coterie of seven. But to those who were familiar with her, it was plain that something had happened. She did not seem herself. Her eyes had a strange gray look to them. Two little white dents appeared oneither side of her nose and her lips were shrunk into pale, narrow lines. But that was not all. Were they dreaming or was this the first of Percy’s Hallowe’en jokes? The beautiful, proud Belle was wearing a faded yellow muslin.
She had tried to cover her shoulders with a little blue scarf, but it was impossible to deceive the sharp eyes of her schoolmates.
“Nobody’s clothes will be hurt, Mother,” put in Percy, feeling somehow that a cloud had fallen on the company, although he did not know enough about girls’ clothes to take in this remarkable change in Belle’s appearance. “Remember that this is a ghost party.”
“What is a ghost party?” demanded Fannie, suddenly becoming animated from the admiration she felt she had attracted.
“Everybody wears a sheet and pillow-case,” answered Percy, “and, for one thing, not a vestige of dress shows.”
A look of triumph came into Belle’s eyes at this and the two dents began to disappear.
“I hear the other people coming, so we had better getinto our costumes if you are entirely through.”
“Come up to my room, girls. Percy will take care of the boys. Marie and I are commissioned to dress you up. I am obeying orders, you see,” said Mrs. St. Clair.
“And remember that you are supposed to be disguised,” called Percy. “Don’t give yourself away by giggling, Miss Nancy-Bell.”
“I’m sure I shan’t want to giggle if I’m dressed as a ghost,” answered Nancy, following the others up the steps.
Half an hour later a company of spectres invaded the halls and drawing room of Pine Lodge. There were silent ghosts and giggling ghosts, and a roly-poly ghost, who bumped against a thin ghost and knocked him flat and the thin ghost cried out:
“Oh, shades of departed Jumbo, don’t sit on me!”
Then all the ghosts laughed and one ghost danced a jig that had the shadow of a resemblance to the Fishers’ Horn Pipe.
Presently there was a long and mournfultrumpet call from up in the very top of the house and a portly ghost who seemed to be holding up a train under her white cotton shroud said:
“Now, my dear spirits, we are all to go up, if you will be good enough to follow me,” and the whole troop of ghosts began moving in a spectral body up the front staircase.
There was a second long-drawn-out and despairing trump, and the phantom beckoned them to hurry up, with her plump, pretty hand, and remarked:
“My darling Percival is so impatient.”
Up the next staircase they trooped and finally up a narrow flight, at the top of which hung a black curtain with cabalistic signs painted on it in bright red.
Once past the curtain and there was a gasp of surprise and wonder. The great attic of Pine Lodge, which stretched over the entire house, had been transformed into a spirit dance hall. From the ceiling hung pumpkin jack-o-lanterns of every size. Plates of salt and alcohol were burning about the room, giving a ghastly greenish lookto the picture. An old witch dressed in black, with a long broomstick, was stationed by a cauldron of melted lead, placed on a charcoal stove.
Repeating a cabalistic verse with incredible rapidity, which sounded something like:
“Burra, burra pie, cat’s eye, devil fry,Singer, dinger, singer dinger, blood!”
the black witch dropped a spoonful of the lead into a bowl of water.
“Here is your fortune,” she said, in a sing-song voice to the nearest ghost.
“The lead has taken the shape of a letter. It brings news to you. It comes from over the water on a ship. The letter is about something round——”
“Money is round,” put in a tall ghost, standing near. “So are rings and necklaces——”
“There is trouble ahead,” went on the witch. “There is trouble before the letter ever reaches land.”
The ghost who was listening moved away quickly.
“Of course, it was just a coincidence,” she said to herself, “but I wonder who the person was who said that about rings and necklaces. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I wish I had never taken that box in charge.”
In another part of the room a red witch was engaged in launching little fortune sail boats, made of English walnuts, on a troubled sea in a tub.
There were four other witches about the attic telling fortunes with cards and in other ways, two gray ones, a white one, and a green one, and there was an enormous gray cat with electric eyes and a tail four feet long that curled up over its back. At last from behind a curtain came the strains of weird music, and the witches and the gray cat danced a quadrille, the witches riding on their broomsticks in a circle, leaping over the cat as they advanced down the middle and finally ending with a romp when all the ghosts joined in and danced together.
After a while the ghosts removed their sheets and pillow-cases and became human beings once more, and the side shows, as Percy called them,began. Every girl at the party bobbed for an apple, except Belle Rogers, who declined emphatically. But those who remembered the red rubber curlers understood her reasons for not wishing to wet her aureole of golden hair.
Fannie Alta plunged her face and neck into the tub with a reckless laugh, and spotted her pretty dress without a quiver of regret.
Nancy, in a little room hung in black in a remote corner of the attic, held a lighted candle over her head, while she looked fearfully in the glass and combed her hair. For just a breathing space a boy’s fair, ruddy face passed across the mirror and disappeared.
With a little shriek, Nancy looked quickly over her shoulder, but she was entirely alone.
Billie went rather later than the others to try her fortune in the mirror room. She had lingered along with a laughing, teasing circle around the apple plungers, and, seeing Nancy come out of the mirror room alone, she strolled over there. Nancy explained what she was to do, and left her alone to her fate.
“Did you see any one, Nancy?” laughed Billie incredulously.
“Yes,” she whispered mysteriously, “I did; but I wasn’t frightened because——”
“Because what?” demanded Billie, pinching her friend’s round cheek.
“Because—it wasn’t a person who would frighten any one,” answered Nancy, with a laugh, as she tripped away to the next side show, from whence issued suppressed screams and howls which were explained when she pulled the curtain and a skeleton jumped at her.
In the meantime, Billie had gone into the mirror room alone. She stood looking gravely at herself in the glass, while she ran a comb through her smooth locks with one hand and held a candle with the other. She seemed to have waited a good while for the apparition which was supposed to appear to show its face.
“I suppose this booth isn’t in working order any longer,” she thought, as she laid down the comb, when suddenly from the deep shadows reflected in the glass she made out the outline of a face.
Billie smiled. She had been prepared to recognize one of her friends, but the smile faded from her lips; she put down the candle quickly and faced about. The black curtain forming the wall of the little room was still quivering, but no one was there.
She ran out hurriedly and looked about her. All the boys and girls were dancing the barn dance, and the attic had become very cheerful and gay it seemed to her in the brief moment in which she had tried her fortune in the mirror room.
“It was just a foolish, nervous notion,” she said to herself, turning to meet Merry Brown, who was looking for her to be his partner in the dance. “But that beaked nose and that wicked eye so close to it,” her thoughts continued. “Could I have been mistaken?”
“Are there any strangers here to-night?” she asked Merry, as they danced down the room together.
“Not a single stranger,” he replied. “Only the High School crowd.”
When the dance was over, they filed in a long, laughing procession down the three flights ofsteps to supper, and there was nothing spectral or gruesome about the gay party which gathered around Mrs. St. Clair’s long table. Billie tried to talk and sing with the others and laugh at Roly Poly McLane and Percy, who recited an absurd dialogue they had prepared beforehand in which Roly Poly took the part of a fat, old man and Percy a thin old woman. But all the time she kept asking herself:
“Did I see him, or was it just my imagination?”
When the front door closed after the departing merry-makers and the sound of the last wheels died away down the avenue, the guests of the house party filed slowly up to bed. Mrs. St. Clair, at the head of the stairs, kissed each of the girls good-night and shook hands with the boys. And, as a final token of their regard, before turning in, the boys trooped from door to door, singing, “Good-night, ladies,” with Charlie accompanying on his mouth organ.
And now the house was still, and our four friends in their bathrobes were seated on the hearth rug around the wood fire in one of the bedrooms, talking in whispers, as girls will do after a party.
“Do you suppose Belle Rogers has been converted, or reformed, or something?” observed Nancy. “What else could have induced her to beso unselfish as to wear Fannie’s old dress and let Fannie wear her best one?”
“It’s the mystery of the age,” said Elinor. “And how different she seemed, too. How quiet and meek. Perhaps, after all, it was her clothes that made her haughty. Who could be anything but lowly in a faded yellow muslin?”
“She was angry at first,” put in Mary. “I saw the danger signals at dinner. But I really believe she had as good a time as any of us afterwards. Perhaps she realized that without the blue satin, she was just on a par with the rest of us, and she forgot to be conscious.”
“And how different Fannie was under the influence of the blue satin,” continued Elinor. “She talked and laughed quite loudly, and she was really rude to Belle several times. Girls, if we ever have blue satins, will they change our dispositions——”
A tap at the door interrupted the conversation, and Mrs. St. Clair, in a long lavender dressing gown, tripped into the room.
“I hope our talking hasn’t disturbed you, Mrs. St. Clair,” said Billie.
“No, no, dear, I am glad you were talking, because I had hoped to find some one of you still awake. I have come to ask a great favor. Will one of you, or all of you, go with me up in the attic for a few minutes? I should have asked one of the servants, but their lights are all out. I suppose they are sound asleep. Percy is asleep, too. I have just come from his room. He is tired out. You can’t think how hard he has worked in the last few days.”
“Let me go with you, Mrs. St. Clair,” put in Elinor.
“Let us all go,” suggested Billie.
“Very well, dear. The more of you the better. To tell the truth, I am a little worried. It’s nothing, of course; I am sure to find it, but I should like to take a look before I go to bed.”
“Have you lost something, Mrs. St. Clair?” asked Mary.
“Yes, I have lost my pearl necklace. I really never missed it until a few moments ago. I have looked downstairs everywhere, but I feel sure that I dropped it in the attic when I was dancing that ridiculous twirling waltz with Ben. Itserves me right for trying to be a young girl when I am really such an old lady.”
“You are really the youngest of us all,” protested the four young girls, following her on tiptoe up the stairs into the attic.
All the members of the searching party were sure that the necklace would be found at once somewhere on the attic floor, or in the folds of the sheet or the pillow-case Mrs. St. Clair had been wearing. Yet Billie and Mary had good reason to know that robbers were at large in the village of West Haven, and the memory of the face Billie had seen in the mirror suddenly became painfully distinct.
Mrs. St. Clair lit a few gas jets in the attic and the great place seemed ghastly enough in the half light with the grotesque jack-o-lanterns grinning at them from above; the black-curtained side shows and an occasional sheet and pillow-case made a weird picture.
They searched the floor carefully, looked into the booths with candles, shook out sheets and pillow-cases, but there was no sign of the missing necklace.
“If it had only been something else,” said Mrs. St. Clair. “I should rather have lost almost anything in the world than my pearl necklace. It was a wedding present from Percival’s father and I valued it more than all my other jewelry together. I don’t see how I could have dropped it so carelessly. When we went down to supper I threw a scarf around my shoulders and that is probably why I never noticed that my pearls were gone. You were standing near me, Mary, and Belle and her friend were there, too. You don’t remember to have noticed the necklace at that time, do you? One of you helped me on with my scarf.”
Mary shook her head.
“I must ask Belle and Miss Alta to-morrow. It is so important to know whether I lost the necklace up here or below.”
“Perhaps you dropped it on the steps,” suggested one of the girls.
“If I did, it must have been trod on by many pairs of feet, then. Oh, dear, I am so sorry. Only this evening I said to myself, I must havethe clasp to the necklace repaired. I had intended to take it to town next week to the jeweller’s.
“But I must not keep you up any longer. You were dear children to come up with me. Now go to bed and don’t think of it any more. I should not have been so selfish. You are all dead tired, I know, for I am myself.”
They turned and trooped downstairs again, and with softly spoken good-nights separated at their bedroom doors.
Billie and Mary were the last to enter the room they shared. They had stopped for a drink of ice water from a big glass pitcher, which had been placed with a tray of tumblers on a table at the far end of the hall. They were drinking their water silently, each absorbed in her own thoughts, when suddenly Mary grasped Billie’s hand and whispered:
“Look! On the steps!”
But Billie was looking with all her eyes before Mary had spoken.
A figure was gliding down the steps wrapped in a sheet. The stray ghost had evidently seen the girls at the same moment they had caughtsight of it, for it finished the flight almost with a bound, and with a swift run disappeared through a door leading to a passage back of the steps, with Billie and Mary running behind. But the sheeted figure was too swift for them, and they heard one of the doors in the passage open and close softly just as they reached the entrance.
“It was this door,” said Mary.
“Or this one,” said Billie, pointing to the door of the room next the one Mary had chosen as the door the phantom had disappeared through.
“We’ll settle it,” said Billie. “I’ll knock on this one and you knock on that one.”
“They are the small single rooms that Belle and Fannie and Roly Poly have,” whispered Mary, as she tapped on a door.
There was no answer and she went in. It was Belle’s room and she was sleeping deeply. Mary smiled as she noticed that Belle now wore a night cap over the rubber curlers. Her cheek was pillowed on her hand and her breath came softly and regularly.
No answer came to Billie’s tap, either, and when she turned the knob she found that the doorwas locked. She tapped again and rattled the knob.
“Who is there?” came a sleepy voice.
“Open the door,” called Billie.
“Tell me who you are first.”
“Billie Campbell.”
Presently the door was thrown open and Fannie, with her dark hair standing out all over her head in a dishevelled mass, peered into the hall.
“What is the matter?” she asked. “The house is not on fire?”
“No, but Mary and I were in the hall and we saw some one come down from the attic and go into one of these rooms, and we thought we had better wake you up.”
“They could not have come in here,” said Fannie. “My door was locked.”
Billie looked at her curiously.
“What a little actress you are,” she thought.
“It doesn’t matter, only Mrs. St. Clair had lost something, and we were afraid a thief might be in the house. You know there have been several robberies lately in West Haven.”
Fannie gave her a long and scornful stare.
“At the High School, you mean?”
“Particularly at the High School,” replied Billie gently. Somehow, she felt a sort of contemptuous pity for this unfortunate little creature who had been taught, perhaps by poverty, to stoop to so much villainy.
“What’s all this racket about?” demanded Rosomond McLane, opening her door which was the third one along the passage and thrusting out her merry, round face.
“You didn’t hear anything did you?” asked Billie. “Mary and I thought we saw some one in a ghost dress come down this passage and go into one of these doors.”
“Good heavens! I am terrified out of my wits, I would rather it would be a burglar than a ghost. Did you really see something?”
“Forget it,” said Billie. “Go back to bed and lock your door. It was just a shadow, I suppose.”
Fannie had already locked her own door and the girls retreated to their room, somewhat crestfallen, feeling very much like two fighters who had been worsted in battle.
When they had crawled into bed and settled themselves under the covers, Billie gave a deep sigh and whispered:
“Mary, dear, which one do you think it was?”
“There is only one thing that would make me think it was Belle,” replied Mary. “If she had really been asleep, she would have waked and come out to find what was the matter. She is the most deadly curious soul alive.”
“That’s very slight evidence, Mary. She might have been specially tired to-night. Now, I believe it was Fannie. She had such a wild, dishevelled look and her door was locked. She is such a creeping, crawling little thing. Besides, I don’t believe Belle would have had the courage to go up in the attic alone.”
“Billie,” observed Mary, after a short silence, “I don’t know what it is all about, but something is going on around us. I believe that you and I, in some way, are mixed up in some kind of conspiracy. The box of jewels is in it and Fannie and Belle are in it. It’s like seeing a lot of figures moving about through a thick curtain. You know they are there, but you don’t knowwhat they are all doing. I’m frightened, Billie, very frightened.”
Mary gave that dry sob which was just as painful as crying and much worse to hear.
Billie put her arms around her friend and tried to comfort her.
“Don’t be scared, Mary, dear. It will all come right. I have made up my mind to one thing. That is, I will not leave that unlucky box at your mother’s house any longer. We shall have to find some new place to keep it.”
Presently the two girls dropped off to slumber, and of all the sleepers in the big house, only one person heard the clock in the hall strike the passing hours. She tossed and tumbled on her bed like a boat on a restless sea, and moaned to herself. Her lace-frilled night cap had slipped, and one red rubber horn pointed upward, like an accusing finger.