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

“Of course,” cried Laura, recovering from her surprise – for she had really not expected that any of Billie’s keys would fit – and ascending the ladder hand over hand. “‘Lead on, Macduff, to victory or to death!’”

Vi groaned again and gingerly put a foot on the ladder. She did not know which was worse, to remain there by herself or to follow the girls to – goodness-knew-what. But the squeak of a mouse behind her made her decide in favor of company, and she scurried in a panic up the ladder.

Meanwhile Billie and Laura were experiencing rather severe pangs of something – they could not have told whether it was disappointment or relief.

They had braced themselves to find something horrible – or at least interesting – in the tower room, and they were rather taken aback at finding themselves confronted with a large amount of nothing at all.

There seemed to be a great deal of junk scattered about, but in the gloom of the place they could not even make that out very clearly.

There were windows all about the tiny room, but they were so encrusted with ancient dirt and cobwebs that the bright sunlight of the out-of-doors was reduced to a weird and spooky twilight, which seemed somehow to correspond to the forlorn aspect of the place.

“Well,” said Laura, drawing a deep breath, “we come up here expecting to find something interesting and we get – stung!”

“It does look that way,” admitted Billie ruefully. “Seems as if we might at least have met a good live ghost or two.”

“Live ghost!” sniffed Laura crossly, for she was really feeling very much injured. “All the ghosts that I ever heard about were as dead as a doornail.”

“For goodness’ sake, stop talking about dead people,” said Vi querulously from the doorway. “If there isn’t anything in here – and thank goodness there isn’t – let’s go back.”

“Not yet,” said Billie. Her eyes, become more accustomed to the dim light, had lighted upon something interesting among the junk. What had caught her attention was a large, clumsy-looking thing like a queerly shaped wooden box. The girls watched her curiously as she bent over to examine it.

“You haven’t found your ghost, have you?” asked Vi, in a voice that was meant to be sarcastic.

“No,” said Billie, a thrill of wonder and excitement creeping into her voice. “But I may have found something! Girls, come here and have a look at this!”

The girls picked their way over the rubbish that littered the floor. What had seemed like a peculiarly shaped box proved on closer inspection to be some cunningly fashioned wooden machinery.

The girls looked at each other in awed silence. To them all in an instant had come the same thrilling thought.

“The lost invention!” murmured Billie. “And we thought there was nothing here!”

CHAPTER XX – STOLEN

“Oh, but how do we know?” protested Laura. “It looks like machinery of some kind, but we have no way of proving that it is the stolen invention.” “No,” said Billie, still in a kind of daze. “It may be just some old worthless thing that has been put up here because it is of no use to anybody. But then again – ”

“Oh, I think Laura’s right,” put in Vi, to whom this new find of Billie’s was not very interesting. It seemed absurd to put any value on that queer-looking thing. And besides, she was anxious to get out of that musty, ill-smelling place. “I thought of Mrs. Haddon at first too, but – ”

“Hello! I wonder what this is,” Laura interrupted her. There had been some blue prints lying on the floor near the wooden machinery. In the poor light they had remained unnoticed until Laura had stumbled upon them quite by accident.

In her eagerness, Billie forgot to be polite. She snatched the papers from her chum and made her way to the nearest dust-begrimed window.

She scanned the prints eagerly and finally came to the thing she had so wildly hoped to find. It was only a name, but it told a great deal.

The blue prints were evidently the design of some sort of machinery, and down at the foot of one page the designer had put his name – Henry Haddon.

“Girls, girls, look!” cried Billie, almost beside herself with excitement at her discovery. “Now maybe you’ll dare to say I’m crazy and I don’t know what I’m talking about. I dreamed of it two nights in succession, and now my dream has come true – ”

“Well, for goodness’ sake, stop waving that thing around and tell us what you’re raving about,” commanded Laura, snatching the blue print from Billie in her turn, while Vi crowded close, looking curiously over her shoulder.

“Here! At the bottom of this page!” crowed Billie, pointing out the name. “See it? Henry Haddon!”

“Henry Haddon!” repeated Laura excitedly. “Then it looks as if that really were his invention.”

“It is the knitting machinery model!” cried Vi, forgetting that a moment ago she had scoffed at the idea.

“Of course it is, you gooses – I mean you geese,” cried Billie, incoherent in her happiness. “I told you so right along, didn’t I? Next time maybe you’ll believe your Uncle Billie.”

“I – guess – yes!” said Laura, still staring at the blue prints as though she could not believe they were real. “You surely did have the right idea that time, Billie.”

“Of course I did!” cried Billie impishly, bubbling over with excitement. “And now I’ve got an idea that’s righter yet. Let’s go to Mrs. Haddon and tell her about it.”

“Agreed!” cried Laura. Then she glanced uncertainly at the blue prints. “Shall we take these along?” she asked.

Billie hesitated, then shook her head.

“No,” she said, “I think we had better leave everything just as we found it.”

So Laura put the important papers back on the spot where she had found them, or as near to it as she could remember.

She then backed out of the room and felt her way down the ladder. Vi followed, treading on her fingers, so that she let go and very nearly tumbled to the floor.

Billie came last, for she was to lock the door.

But a strange thing happened. Either excitement had made Billie’s fingers clumsy or something had really happened to the rusty lock. At any rate, she could not get the door locked again and after a few minutes of nervous fumbling, interspersed with remarks from the girls that were anything but encouraging, she gave up the attempt.

“Oh, well, we’ll be back in a little while, anyway,” she said, as she came down swiftly hand over hand and dropped to the floor beside the girls. “Come on now, let’s hurry and find Mrs. Haddon.”

They scurried down the stairs and were hurrying to their dormitory to get on coats and hats when a voice hailed them and they stopped impatiently to find Rose Belser hurrying toward them.

“Have you heard the latest, girls?” asked the dark-haired girl excitedly, for once forgetting her sleepy drawl.

“No,” said Billie, trying not to sound as impatient as she felt, while Laura and Vi frowned openly.

“It’s up on the bulletin board,” Rose told them, too full of her own news to notice their annoyance. “Connie Danvers has lost a gold wrist watch and Miss Walters is very much upset about it. She says that the thief, whoever it is, must be found. And she has ordered that no girl leave the Hall until to-morrow morning.”

The girls looked at each other and groaned.

“Till to-morrow morning!” said Billie, her face as long as though a death sentence had just been pronounced upon her. “Oh, why couldn’t Connie have held on to her old watch!”

Rose’s look of surprise was so genuine that it put Billie instantly on her guard. The chums were not ready yet to take anybody into their confidence about the new discovery.

And so she covered her slip as well as she could, and they went on together to the dormitory, exclaiming sympathetically over Connie’s loss.

The next morning came at last, however, and as it was Sunday, the girls were free to go as soon as the morning chapel hour was over. But as Miss Walters would not allow any girl to leave the building without special permission from her, the classmates were forced to go to her and tell her about their invasion of the tower room and their discovery.

She was displeased that they had not asked her consent before taking such a step. But she was also very much interested in their story, and readily gave them her permission to go to Polly Haddon.

“Bring her back with you, if you can,” she said, “and we will all go together to the tower room.”