CHAPTER XIX--WHERE'S MY LIGHT?
Crowding up behind Cora, the others peered over her shoulders. Thesetting sun, streaming in through the windows, revealed a strange sightin the big living room. Several chairs were overturned, a large couchthat had been against the wall was out in the middle of the floor, atable that had been piled with magazines and books was turned on itsside, and turned upside down on the overturned table was perched achair, as though children had been playing some simple game, likestagecoach or steamboat, with the table and chair to representmake-believe articles of locomotion.
For a moment surprise and wonder held them all dumb, then Jack burst outwith:
"Say! who did this monkey-business, anyhow?"
"Monkey-business?" repeated Cora.
"It's the surprise!" exclaimed Belle, and her voice was not quitesteady. "We've been expecting this. The ghosts have paid one of theirvisits. Oh dear!"
"Don't be silly!" exclaimed Bess, who, perhaps because her nerves werebetter protected, did not give way to emotion so readily as did herthinner sister. "Isn't this just what we've been looking for--and hopingfor?"
"Hoping for?" asked Paul. "Well, I must say it's a queer sort of hope!"
"Oh, I don't mean that, exactly," Bess went on. "But we knew somethinglike this was bound to happen, and this is the first manifestation."
"No, not exactly the first," Cora said.
"What do you mean?" asked Bess. "Isn't this the first time anything hasbeen upset in our bungalow?"
"Yes, but it isn't the first manifestation," Cora went on. "Shall wetell, Belle?" she asked.
"Yes," nodded the slim Robinson girl.
"Though how you can connect the queer noise with what has taken placehere I don't see," put in Walter who had been looking curiously aboutthe upset room, which none of them had ventured yet to enter.
"What! Does he know about it, too?" asked Belle.
Cora nodded. "He heard it, and thought at first it was thunder."
"Say, what's this all about?" demanded Jack. "Are you hiding part of thesecret from us, Sis?"
"Well, in a way--yes."
"That isn't fair. If there's a secret here we ought to share it. And ifyou girls are going to keep things to yourselves we fellows will pack upand leave, and----"
"Don't dare desert us!" cried Belle. "I won't stay here a minute afterthe boys go; will you, Cora?"
"Well, I like to have them here, of course," answered Jack's sister."But if we talk that way about them they'll get an exaggerated idea oftheir importance, and there'll be no way of enforcing discipline. So ifthey want to go let them, and we'll solve this mystery ourselves."
"I think we're making a mountain out of a molehill," declared Walter. "Idon't see any great mystery here. A few chairs and a table are upset.It's the most natural thing in the world."
"Natural? How do you make that out?" asked Bess.
"Why, Mrs. Floyd has been sweeping and dusting in here, and she hasmoved the chairs about. They always do it at our house. And say! somedays it's as much as your life is worth to try to navigate through themisplaced furniture. You need a harbor pilot and a searchlight, to saynothing of a chart and an automobile road map. That's all that'shappened here. Mrs. Floyd has been doing a little house-cleaning."
"So that's your explanation of it; is it?" asked Cora. "Then how do youaccount for the fact that Mrs. Floyd and her husband have been away allday?"
She pointed toward the road and the others saw the two caretakers in Mr.Floyd's light wagon approaching the bungalow. They were returning fromtheir day's shopping trip, as was evident by the number of bundles inthe vehicle.
"I think you'll find that Mrs. Floyd hasn't done any house-cleaningto-day," said Cora. "You can't account for the surprise that way."
Cora was right, in so far as Mrs. Floyd was concerned. The chaperon andher husband had been away all day.
"What is it? What has happened? Is anything the matter?" asked Mrs.Floyd, as she saw the young people on the porch of the bungalow, lookingin at the open door. "Is any one hurt?"
"No, it's just the surprise," said Cora. "Is that what has happenedbefore, Mrs. Floyd?"
The caretaker looked inside, and caught her breath sharply.
"Yes--yes," she answered slowly. "This has happened before, but never asbad as this. I mean it never before was quite so upset. I--I can'taccount for it."
"It's them pesky tramps!" said Mr. Floyd. "I'll notify the constableagain; that's what I'll do!"
"Do you think it was tramps?" asked Jack.
"Who else could it be?" the caretaker demanded, and neither Jack nor theothers could answer, though Walter asked:
"Well, if it were tramps, wouldn't they steal something if they had thechance they've had to-day? Let's take a look and see if anything ismissing."
Then they went in, a bit gingerly at first, for there is a queer,uncanny sort of feeling in coming back to find the furniture upset in astrange fashion. They all felt it, even joking Jack.
But, aside from the misplaced tables, chairs and couch, nothing wrongwas found. Nothing was missing, as far as could be ascertained, and nofood had been taken from the pantry, though more than once, Mrs. Floydsaid, on former occasions when the "surprise" had been manifested, thelarder showed signs of an unknown visitor.
"Now before we set things to rights," suggested Jack, "suppose we see ifthere are any clews. Let's go at this thing right. Look at each piece offurniture and see if it has----"
"Any finger marks on? Is that what you mean, Jack?" asked Paul.
"No, I'm not drawing it quite as fine as that. I mean look around on thefloor for bits of mud, for any signs of foot prints--anything, in fact,that would give us a line on who did this."
"It seems to have been done deliberately, anyhow," observed Walter. "Thechairs and other things weren't misplaced in a hurry. They took theirtime. Why any one but a child would want to pile that chair on the tableis remarkable."
"That very thing may indicate that it was just some skylarking boys,"commented Jack.
Mr. Floyd shook his head.
"There aren't any boys around here," he said. "Of course lads might comeout from the village, and break in to do this mischief, but it isn'tlikely. This is private land, and on several previous occasionstrespassers have been arrested, so the boys don't generally come here.Besides, they wouldn't have had a key to come in with."
"Did they use a key to enter?" asked Paul.
"The door was locked when we got back," replied Cora, as if that settledit.
"And the window fastenings are still on," reported Jack, who made aquick inspection.
"Here's a bit of mud near this one chair, as if it had dropped from someone's shoe," Walter said. "So the surprisers must have come in fromoutside."
"Where else would they come from?" Jack demanded. "Did you think theywere concealed in the bungalow?"
"I don't know what to think," Walter answered slowly. "It's a queermystery."
"I hope it won't cause you folks to leave," said Mrs. Floyd a bitanxiously. "We'd like you to stay on."
"And we will!" cried Cora. "We knew that a surprise awaited us when wecame here, and we haven't been disappointed. And, now that it has come,we're not going to turn cowards and run away. We'll get to the bottom ofthis mystery."
"That's right!" cried Jack. "Who's afraid? You aren't; are you, Hazel?"
"Not--not if----"
"Not if _I_ stay! There, I knew it!" and Jack puffed out his chest. "Seewhat it is to have confidence in a man. Now if the rest of you will actas I do, we'll soon----"
"Oh, I didn't say that at all!" cried the blushing Hazel. "I meant Iwould stay if the _rest_ did."
"Squelched!" murmured Jack in dejected tones. "Never mind, I'll lay thisghost yet. Now let's get things to rights, and then we'll stay to supperwith you girls."
"Hadn't you better wait until you're invited?" asked Cora.
"Oh, do let them stay!" begged Belle. "I--I'm a bit nervous over this."
"Anot
her manly protector needed," murmured Paul.
"Let us stay and we'll help find the ghost," suggested Walter, and thegirls were glad enough to agree, for, truth to tell, they were a bitupset, and even Cora looked over her shoulder nervously as she ascendedthe stairs.
"Well, they didn't come up and disturb your bedrooms this time," saidMrs. Floyd, as she went to the upper story with the girls.
"Do you mean to say they actually have upset the things in the_bedrooms_?" asked Belle.
"Sometimes," replied the caretaker. "Though that hasn't happened oflate."
"Oh, dear!" sighed the slim girl. "I did hope we would be safe from themup here."
"Oh, they never come--that is, things never happen--when any one is in thehouse," Mrs. Floyd hastened to add. "It's always when the place is leftto itself."
"Then the--er--well, call it ghost, for want of a better name," saidJack--"then the ghost must keep watch to know when we go out."
"I'm sure I don't know," said Mrs. Floyd. "It's very annoying, and I dohope you will find out what does it and stop it."
"We will," Jack declared. "I'm sure, after all, we'll find out that itis due to perfectly natural causes."
"That's what I believe," said Walter. "I wonder if it could be anearthquake?"
"Earthquake?" echoed the others.
"Yes," Walter went on. "You know that queer noise which Cora, Belle andI seem to have heard to the exclusion of you others? Well, that was asort of rumbling of the earth. It might have been a slight shock, areaction from a distant quake. Such things have been known to happen.And if there was one there might well be another. If the bungalow shookhard enough the chairs might have been upset as we found them."
Jack shook his head.
"Your theory won't hold water," he said. "If there was a hard enoughshock to knock over chairs and tables, the dishes in the closets wouldhave been broken."
"I think so, too," declared Paul. "The earthquake won't account for it,Walter."
"Perhaps not. But I can't think what else it could be."
"A human agency, you may be sure of that," declared Cora. "I don'tbelieve in the supernatural. This was done by human hands and, sooner orlater, we'll discover by whom. Humans are fallible and will make amistake. We must watch for that mistake."
They righted the furniture and talking of the matter seemed to make itlose some of its mysteriousness. The boys stayed to supper and untillate in the evening. Jack offered to remain all night, and sleep on thecouch downstairs, but Cora would not hear of it.
"We'll be all right," she declared. "We can call you on the telephone ifwe want you. Besides, Mr. Floyd is going to leave open the door leadingto his quarters, and he can hear if we call. We'll be all right."
"Well, ring us up if you find the chairs doing a fox trot or hesitationwaltz in the middle of the night," suggested Walter.
The girls went upstairs together, casting quick, nervous glances overtheir shoulders as they ascended. They locked their hall doors as soonas they were inside. But as the four chambers communicated, it was as ifthey were in one large apartment.
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Cora, as she was taking down her hair. "I'veforgotten it."
"What?" asked Bess, who was taking off her shoes.
"My flashlight," Cora answered. "I left it on the table in the livingroom. I meant to bring it up, for I like to see what time it is if Iawaken in the night."
"I'll go down with you if you want to get it," offered Hazel.
"No, thank you. I'll do without it. I dare say I shan't need it."
"Let's burn a light all night," proposed Belle.
And no one called her silly. So the lamp was left aglow, turned down alittle.
Contrary, at least to some expectations, the night passed peacefully.There was no disturbance, and the girls awoke refreshed and with only alittle feeling of uneasiness as to what might happen in the future.
But when Cora went downstairs, and began looking among the things on thetable in the living room, another manifestation of the queer happeningswas in evidence.
"Where's my light?" she demanded. "I left my flashlight here last night,and now it's gone. Did any one take it?"
No one had, the boys and girls denying all knowledge. Nor had Mr. orMrs. Floyd removed it, and Cora was positive she had left it on thetable. She recalled her remarks about it the night previous.
"Well, it's gone," she said. "Another one of the mysteries."
"You seem to be singled out," observed Walter. "First it's your auto,and now your light."
"Do you think the two cases have any connection?" asked Cora.