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

When she reached the fourth floor, which was really the attic, she went more slowly, for the place was dark and “spooky” – so she said – and the noise of her footsteps frightened her. The tiny light of her candle seemed to make the shadowy corners of the place all the more startlingly black.

Once she thought she heard a noise and stopped short, her heart beating suffocatingly in her throat. But it was only the wind sighing drearily around the place, and she went on again, more slowly now, starting at every real or imaginary sound.

The stairway that led to the third tower was at the very end of the long attic, and as she came near to it Billie’s courage almost failed her. It seemed to her that something sinister and terrible was closing in around her, and she pressed her hand against her mouth to keep from screaming.

She could see the dim outline of the stairway right before her, but she was afraid to go forward – and she dared not go back.

What would the girls say if she went back to them and confessed that she had been too cowardly to stand the test? She would be disgraced forever in the eyes of her chums, her reputation for daring and bravery would be gone, she might even be asked to resign from the Ghost Club.

For a long minute she stood there, fighting the desire to rush back to friends and human companionship. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, she forced herself to approach the stairs.

With every step she stopped and listened, glancing about her fearfully. But nothing save the sound of her own rapid breathing broke the musty, heavy silence of the place.

“I must go on, I must go on!” she kept telling herself over and over again. “To the very top of the tower – to the top of the tower – ”

What was that?

A rattling, a scurrying, a scratching of tiny feet across the floor. Billie screamed, but stifled the sound half way by stuffing a handkerchief into her mouth. Her eyes were wide with terror, her hair began to stand on end, and with a little moan she made a rush for the stairs up which she had come a minute before.

She had almost reached them when by the light of her candle she saw something running across the floor. It was a mouse. Weakly she leaned against the wall, trying to summon what remained of her courage.

“They’re only mice, silly – they can’t hurt you,” she told herself, while her hand shook so that she could scarcely hold the candle. Then a sudden thought made her start back for the tower stairs almost on a run. The candle was burning low. She must hurry or she would be left in the dark. Just a quick dive up the stairs to the tower room and the deed would be done. She could go back then, to friends and lights and adulation. For she would be able to tell them proudly that she had done what no other girl had dared to do – climbed to the top of tower three.

With such thoughts she bolstered up her courage and ran swiftly up the stairs. But the “swish” of her garments in that silent place frightened her and she stopped before she had quite reached the top. She listened intently.

Was it imagination, or had she really heard that eerie whisper in her ear, felt the soft brushing of a dress against hers? Of course it was only imagination. She mustn’t think such things or she could never climb to the top of those hateful stairs. She must go on and on – to the top – the very top – Again that scurrying and squealing as she disturbed another nest of mice. She grasped the banister frantically to steady herself.

She must go up – up – Finally she had reached the top of the stairs, and for one joyful minute she thought that she had climbed to the top of the tower. She could go back again to the girls – she had turned toward the stairs when her eye fell on an object that made her breath catch in her throat.

Revealed by the uncertain flare of the candle was a ladder, leading apparently to some room above. Of course, that must be the tower room. Then she still had some climbing to do before her task was finished.

Billie’s heart sank as she approached the ladder, stumbling over bits of junk and rubbish that littered the floor. She must hurry, too, for the candle was burning down and she must not be left in the dark in that place. She would go crazy – or something.

Outside the wind was rising, and it wailed around the corners of the old building with an unspeakably weird and mournful sound that filled Billie with a dreadful premonition of evil.

She really felt, as she hesitated at the foot of the ladder, that she must get back to the girls or she would go mad. Her knees were trembling so that she was afraid she could never climb the ladder to the top.

But she must do it or go back to the girls disgraced.

One hand grasped the rung above her head while the other held aloft the flickering candle and she began the difficult climb, hampered by the long white robe that clung like something alive about her ankles and by the necessity of holding the candle.

Four rungs, five rungs, six rungs – was the ladder a mile long? she wondered, while the wind wailed still more dismally about the house.

Then at last she reached the top. Her candle showed a small door not more than four feet high – the door to the tower room.

Her hand felt for the knob. She grasped it. The door was locked. To make sure, Billie gave the door a vigorous shake, and as it did so something white and soft fluttered to her feet and fell on the top rung of the ladder.

For a minute Billie felt faint and dizzy, and she had to cling to the ladder desperately to keep from falling.

The next moment she saw that what had frightened her was only a handkerchief, and she stooped to pick it up. It was old and stained. What was that stain upon it?

She brought the little square of linen closer to her eyes and then with a stifled scream she flung it from her while the candle fell from her nerveless fingers and went out, leaving her in the dark.

The stain on the handkerchief was blood!

Billie never remembers to this day how she got out of that awful place. Someway she half fell, half scrambled down the ladder, stumbled and fell and stumbled again in her mad rush across the pitch-black attic to the head of the stairs.

Then down, down, down, a countless number of stairs that came up and hit her in the face – down, down to the gymnasium where thousands of ghostly figures rushed at her —

“Oh, what could have happened to have frightened her so?” she heard a voice saying from a long, long distance, and she opened her eyes to find Laura’s white face bending anxiously over her while other white-faced girls stared at her pityingly.

She struggled to her feet, but her knees wavered so that she sat down again quite suddenly.

“What’s the matter with you all?” she asked, then as the memory of what had happened came back to her in a flood she shuddered and instinctively she looked down at her hands to see if they still held that piece of linen with the stains upon it.

“Oh, I remember,” she murmured, as though talking to herself. The girls were watching her anxiously. “I threw it away.”

“What, honey?” asked Laura gently.

“The blood-stained handkerchief!”

CHAPTER XV – A DISCOVERY

It took the other girls some time to get the whole story from Billie, but when she had stammered it out to them they broke into a babel of excited exclamations that threatened to bring one of the teachers to their hiding place.

It was Billie herself who thought of this danger and who finally managed to calm them down a little.

“Not so loud,” she entreated, still feeling faint and shaky from her experience. “You know what will happen if somebody finds us here.”

“But Billie,” protested Laura, though her voice sank to a more cautious whisper, “we’ve got to do something about it, you know. There may have been a murder or something up there.”

“Perhaps we’d better all go back with Billie and try to get into that little room at the head of the ladder,” suggested one of the girls, but the mere idea made Billie shudder.

“You can go,” she said decidedly. “But I’m through for to-night.”

“Oh, well, if you won’t go,” said the girl dejectedly, “it’s all off, of course. We need a guide – ”

“I don’t see why,” protested Billie. “Nobody gave me a guide.”

“No. And it was a shame to send you away up there all alone,” said Vi, putting a protecting arm about her. “It’s a wonder you didn’t die of fright.”

“I suppose,” said Ann Fleming, thoughtfully, “we might tell one of the teachers about it – or Miss Walters, perhaps – and she could go with us up to the tower – ”

“Say,” interrupted Rose Belser with her most pronounced drawl, as she looked contemptuously upon the freshman who had proposed so foolish a thing, “it’s easy to see you haven’t been at Three Towers long, Ann. Now just what do you suppose would happen if we told Miss Walters that we were up after hours initiating and doing stunts?”

“I – I didn’t think of that,” stammered Ann, completely crushed.

“I thought you didn’t,” answered Rose dryly.