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

She seized the hand bag from the girl’s nerveless grasp and began to ransack it with eager fingers.

“It’s no use,” said Edina in a dazed voice. “I wrapped the money up in a paper and put it there last night. To-day it’s gone!”

Aware that they were attracting the attention of others in the bank, Billie pulled Edina over to a seat against the wall.

“Here,” she said. “We’ll pull this thing inside out. We have to find the money, Edina.”

The girl nodded dumbly. Tears overflowed from her eyes and ran down her face. Absent-mindedly she wiped them away with the corner of a new silk pocket handkerchief.

Billie dumped the contents of Edina’s hand bag into her lap, scrambling them with eager fingers.

There was a vanity case – a newly acquired luxury, to the buying of which Edina had been egged on by Billie herself. There was a tiny blue-enameled pocket comb, a small purse containing a few pieces of silver, a shopping list, and a roll of bills amounting to ten dollars.

“That’s all mine,” said Edina dully. “The gift money is gone.”

“If you say that once more, I’ll scream,” cried Billie. “Stop crying, Edina, do. You have got to pull yourself together if we are going to work this thing out. Let me think! You say you wrapped the money in a paper late yesterday afternoon?”

Edina nodded, twisting the silk handkerchief nervously between her fingers.

“You say that was the last time you saw it?”

Again Edina nodded.

“What did you do with it last night?”

“I put it in my trunk and locked it. It has a queer lock with a key that looks like a humped-backed old man. No ordinary key could open that lock!” She looked pleadingly at Billie.

“What did you do with the key?”

“Slept with it on a string around my neck. I sleep light, too. Nobody could possibly ’a’ got that key off my neck without me knowin’ it.”

Billie nodded and was thoughtful for some time.

“How about to-day?”

“All day long my pocketbook has been in the locked trunk and the key was around my neck,” said Edina doggedly. “No one could ’a’ touched it without first knockin’ me dead, Billie.”

“Well, then – I don’t see – ” The amateur sleuth paused, temporarily at a loss. “It couldn’t have been somebody in the street car, coming out, Edina? A pickpocket, you know. I’ve heard they are very quick with their hands.”

“There ain’t none of ’em quick enough to have got this pocketbook away from me,” Edina retorted grimly. “Anyway, I was holdin’ my hand over the top of it all the way – just for fear someone would get a hold of it.”

Billie jumped to her feet. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were almost feverishly flushed.

“Then if you are quite sure of this, the money must be up at Three Towers. You have dropped the money out of your pocketbook – perhaps when you picked it up.”

Edina started to say that she could not possibly have done any such thing; but Billie was beyond listening to her.

“Come along,” she cried, with feverish impatience. “We’ve got to get back right away – before any one finds that packet and makes off with it!”

Billie’s impatience infected Edina. The two girls rushed for the street car, caught it by the barest margin, and sat twiddling their fingers in desperate suspense during the seemingly interminable ride back to Three Towers Hall.

Released by the trolley, they rushed to Edina’s dormitory. As luck would have it, the long room was empty and they at once began a feverish search of everything in it, beginning with Edina’s trunk and winding up by peering under mattresses and into pillow slips.

“Nothing!” panted Billie. She sat down on the edge of Edina’s bed to rest “Edina! Edina! Where has that money gone?”

“I’d just about give ten years of my life to know,” returned Edina.

She sat down on the bed beside Billie. Her hands felt cold but her head was throbbing feverishly.

“Billie,” she said dully, “it’s the end of everything for me here.”

“Nonsense!” said Billie, and took one of the cold hands and held it tight.

“It is,” said Edina. “They’ll say I took that money, Billie. What’s worse, they’ll think I took it.”

“I won’t,” said Billie.

“I know you won’t. I think you’re the only one here who really knows me. It’s been a long hard fight with the rest. Now they will think I took the money and it will be the end of everything for me. I – I was beginning to be so happy here.”

Before Billie could say a word of comfort or reassurance the door opened and several of the younger girls flocked in. Their talk and laughter died at sight of Billie and Edina.

“Well!” said a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pert little thing. “You two look as if you’d been talking secrets. What’s up?”

Before Billie could stop her or could even be sure what she was going to do, Edina got to her feet and faced the curious girls.

Her eyes were red with crying, her fingers clasped and unclasped nervously, but her voice was steady as she said:

“I suppose you might as well know now as any time. That money the girls trusted me with, the money to buy the present for Miss Gay, I – I’ve lost it. Or it has been stolen!”

The news spread like wildfire.

Billie dragged Edina to her dormitory, hoping to protect the girl, only to find her own friends lying in wait for her.

There was a crowd already gathered there, a crowd that increased in numbers rapidly. At sight of it, Edina shrank within herself and would have fled cravenly had it not been for Billie’s grip upon her hand.

“No use running away,” Billie whispered fiercely. “It’s far better to stay and face the music.”

Ray Carew pushed her way to Billie’s side. She eyed Edina coldly.

“I’ve heard so many rumors that I don’t know what to believe and what not to,” she said. “What is all this about the Gift Club money being lost, Billie?”

“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Billie gravely. “Only in my opinion it has been stolen – not lost.”

Briefly but graphically, she gave an account of her and Edina’s trip to the bank in Molata, of their surprise and consternation when Edina discovered the loss of the money.

Laura, who had taken a firm stand at Billie’s side, turned to Edina.

“Didn’t you look inside your pocketbook before you started downtown?” she asked.