Vi had a little luck with the dresser. She unearthed fifteen dollars in bills, but at sight of them Billie shook her head in disappointment.
“No good, if we don’t find more than that,” she said.
At the moment there came a soft, insistent scratching at the door, the agreed-upon signal that trouble was brewing.
Billie slammed down the trunk lid. Vi shoved things into the dresser drawer. Outside the room they found Laura and Edina in an agony of impatience.
They whisked about a turn in the corridor just in time to avoid the person whose room they had ransacked. Careful to keep themselves hidden, they watched Maria Tatgood go into her room and shut the door.
When Billie’s companions would have slipped away, anxious to get back to the dormitory, she detained them.
“Let’s watch for awhile,” she proposed. “We may see something of interest. You never can tell.”
Billie afterwards said that her suggestion was prompted by a “hunch.” Be that as it may, the fact remains that Maria Tatgood emerged from her room almost immediately, wearing hat and coat as though ready for an outing. She turned down the corridor toward the servants’ entrance to the Hall.
“Come along!” said Billie impulsively. “Let’s follow her!”
Billie Bradley and her three companions were without wraps, though they were too excited to think of that. Also, they had had no time to inform the boys at Boxton Military Academy as to their purpose and enlist their help. They were too excited to think of that, either.
They followed Maria Tatgood, always at a discreet distance, through the school gates and along the dusty road.
“Where do you suppose she’s going?” Laura whispered.
“Home!” said Billie “I’ve a notion we are going to make a real discovery this time!”
Maria Tatgood lived in an old house, set well back from the road and surrounded by tall trees. There had been no attempt to cut the grass that grew in reedy abundance to the very steps of the porch. The house itself was in a state of considerable disrepair. A little carpentry work and a coat or two of paint would have made it a much more habitable place.
All these things impressed themselves more or less vividly on the minds of the girls as they watched Maria Tatgood ascend the worn steps of the porch and disappear into the house.