Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall Part 16

A PLOT FAILS

Caroline Brant had been watching from behind a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, although n.o.body, not even Rose, could have told it.

She had seen Rose glance into the room, had noticed how queerly she had looked at Billie, and now, as Rose started across the corridor, Caroline was at her heels, quick as a cat.

It was not till Rose's hand was on the k.n.o.b of the door across the hall that Caroline spoke.

All she said was, "Where are you going?" in a quiet little whisper, but Rose whirled upon her fiercely.

"You're following me," she cried, almost forgetting to whisper in her fury. "What do you mean?"

"You'd better not make so much noise," said Caroline calmly. "We'll have Miss Ada or Miss Cora down upon us if you're not careful."

"Miss Ada or Miss Cora," mimicked Rose, actually trembling with fear and rage at being caught. "What do I care for Miss Ada or Miss Cora!"

"Well, I care a lot, if you don't," retorted Caroline, urging the excited girl back toward the lighted dormitory. "I don't know what you're so mad about anyway," she added, as Rose glared at her. "Your time for playing guard was up, and when I came over to tell you about it I found you were gone."

Caroline was fibbing--or, at least, partly so--but Rose had no way of knowing that. What she did know was that she had made a goose of herself for nothing, and all at once she hated Caroline more than she hated Billie or any one else on earth.

But she did not dare show it. The only thing for her to do was to try to pa.s.s the thing off the best she could. So when they reached the door she looked up at Caroline with the best smile she could manage and tried hard to keep her voice steady.

"I'm sorry I spoke as I did," she said. "I was just going to slip into the dorm and get a bottle of olives that fell under the bed. And when you spoke to me so suddenly it frightened me--that's all."

"It seems a pretty big chance to take--for a bottle of olives," said Caroline gravely, and in spite of herself Rose flushed. Oh, how she hated "grinds" that wore horn-rimmed spectacles!

The two were greeted joyfully by the rest of the girls, who would never know just how near they had been to discovery.

"I guess the time's up for your watch, Rose," said Billie. "Come on, let's draw lots and see who's the next."

Laura made a dash for the gla.s.s bowl that served as a lottery but Caroline interrupted her.

"I'll stand watch for a while," she said, adding as the girls started to protest: "It's hot in here and it's cool in the hall, and I need cooling off. Will somebody hand me a sandwich once in a while?"

"I'll say we will," they cried, and immediately began plying her with so many sandwiches and pickles and biscuits that she laughingly protested.

"And don't make too much noise," she said, as she started for the door.

"You know Miss Ada may be a little suspicious that there's something up and come snooping around again."

"Well, you know the signal," Billie whispered after her. "Scratch twice on the door."

Caroline nodded, glanced at Rose, and went out to her post, sandwiches, pickles, biscuits and all.

The rest of that evening was not very pleasant for either Caroline or Rose. Caroline was wondering whether she ought to tell Billie and the other girls that she had found Rose sneaking, yes, actually sneaking, into the room across the hall when she should have been at her post.

"Of course, I don't know that she was going to do anything wrong," she kept telling herself, yet in her heart she knew that Rose had been up to some mischief. "But it isn't fair to Billie not to say anything," she worried. "I know Rose, and she's sure to try to get even some time, and Billie ought to be told to look out." And all the time she was thinking, her ears were strained for the slightest noise below stairs.

As for Rose, she would have pleaded a headache, for by that time she really had one, and gone to bed, if she had not been afraid of being laughed at by the girls.

And so she stayed on and on, trying to act as if nothing were the matter, laughing and joking with the other girls, eating sandwiches and cake till she was sick of the very sight of them, while all the time she was wondering, wondering, what Caroline was going to do.

"She can't really tell anything," she worried, while her head ached harder and harder. "I didn't really _do_ anything."

But all the time she knew that just leaving her post at the door when so much depended upon the girls not being discovered was a terrible thing and one that the girls would find it hard to forgive should they find her out.

"If only Caroline doesn't say anything," she thought, adding spitefully: "And now I suppose I've got to be nice to the old thing, whether I want to or not."

Meanwhile, the rest of the girls were having a gay time. Never had a forbidden feast gone off so beautifully before, and they were in hilarious spirits.

As the hour hand of the little clock on Nellie's dresser crept near to midnight the girls packed up the fragments of the feast, and, after they had pushed the baskets out of sight under the beds, drew their chairs together to form a semi-circle and began joyfully to tell the most blood-curdling ghost stories they knew.

Each girl had to tell some story she had read or heard, or if she was so unfortunate as never to have read or heard any, was forced to make one up "out of her own head."

The fun waxed fast and furious, each story being more hair-raising than the last until it came to Billie's turn.

"But I don't know any ghost stories, and I'm no good at making them up,"

she protested when the girls looked at her expectantly. "I like adventure stories about treasure hunting and robbers and murderers and things----"

"Well, that'll do," said Laura joyfully, while the other girls s.h.i.+vered delightedly and drew close together. "Tell us a murder story, Billie."

Billie was about to open her mouth in protest when Vi suddenly made a suggestion.

"I've got the very thing," she cried. "Tell the girls about the 'Codfish,' Billie."

"'The codfish'?" they repeated, looking puzzled, while Rose added with a little yawn: "Yes, do tell us about the codfish, Billie--it sounds so interesting."

The tone more than the words made Billie angry, but before she had time to retort the girls broke in, eagerly demanding the story of the "Codfish."

"We caught one one time on a family fis.h.i.+ng trip," said one of the girls, taking it for granted that this particular codfish was of the swimming variety, "and we had fried codfish steaks for a week afterward."

Billie chuckled while Vi and Laura openly giggled.

"But this wasn't that kind of a fish," said Billie. "It was a man."

This was almost too much for the girls, who were beginning to think that Billie and Laura and Vi had suddenly gone crazy, but Billie hurried on to explain about the "Codfish," growing more and more interested in her story as she went on.

As for the girls, well, they simply hung on her words, and when she came to the part where the thief had dropped her precious trunk in the roadway they exclaimed so loudly that Caroline had to warn them to be quiet. By this time the guard at the door had been removed, as there was little danger of discovery at so late an hour.

"Well," sighed Connie Danvers, when Billie had finished her story, "I wish something like that would happen to me sometime. It sounds just like a story book."

"But you should have caught him," Nellie objected. Though Nellie had heard of Billie's wonderful good fortune in finding the old trunk, she had never heard the details of the part the "Codfish" had played in it until to-night. "It gives me the s.h.i.+vers to think that an awful thing like that, with red hair and a fishy mouth, should be wandering around loose."

"I'm sure I'll dream of him to-night," said one of the other girls plaintively.

"Speaking of dreams," said Billie, getting to her feet so quickly that she almost upset the girl beside her, "don't you all think we'd better get back to our dorm? It's after midnight, and--I'm awfully afraid of Miss Ada."

"Well, I'm not--not after to-night," said Laura. "You surely did fool the Pickle with your snoring, Billie."

"Yes. But next time somebody else will have to do the snoring," said Billie, with a rueful little smile.