Chapter XIX: Where's My Light?

Crowding up behind Cora, the others peered over her shoulders. The setting sun, streaming in through the windows, revealed a strange sight in the big living room. Several chairs were overturned, a large couch that had been against the wall was out in the middle of the floor, a table that had been piled with magazines and books was turned on its side, and turned upside down on the overturned table was perched a chair, as though children had been playing some simple game, like stagecoach or steamboat, with the table and chair to represent make-believe articles of locomotion.

For a moment surprise and wonder held them all dumb, then Jack burst out with:

"Say! who did this monkey-business, anyhow?"

"Monkey-business?" repeated Cora.

"It's the surprise!" exclaimed Belle, and her voice was not quite steady. "We've been expecting this. The ghosts have paid one of their visits. Oh dear!"

"Don't be silly!" exclaimed Bess, who, perhaps because her nerves were better protected, did not give way to emotion so readily as did her thinner sister. "Isn't this just what we've been looking for--and hoping for?"

"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 something like 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 has been upset in our bungalow?"

"Yes, but it isn't the first manifestation," Cora went on. "Shall we tell, Belle?" she asked.

"Yes," nodded the slim Robinson girl.

"Though how you can connect the queer noise with what has taken place here I don't see," put in Walter who had been looking curiously about the 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 the secret from us, Sis?"

"Well, in a way--yes."

"That isn't fair. If there's a secret here we ought to share it. And if you girls are going to keep things to yourselves we fellows will pack up and leave, and----"

"Don't dare desert us!" cried Belle. "I won't stay here a minute after the 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 of their importance, and there'll be no way of enforcing discipline. So if they 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. "I don'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 has moved the chairs about. They always do it at our house. And say! some days it's as much as your life is worth to try to navigate through the misplaced furniture. You need a harbor pilot and a searchlight, to say nothing of a chart and an automobile road map. That's all that's happened here. Mrs. Floyd has been doing a little house-cleaning."

"So that's your explanation of it; is it?" asked Cora. "Then how do you account for the fact that Mrs. Floyd and her husband have been away all day?"

She pointed toward the road and the others saw the two caretakers in Mr. Floyd's light wagon approaching the bungalow. They were returning from their day's shopping trip, as was evident by the number of bundles in the vehicle.

"I think you'll find that Mrs. Floyd hasn't done any house-cleaning to-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 and her 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, looking in at the open door. "Is any one hurt?"

"No, it's just the surprise," said Cora. "Is that what has happened before, Mrs. Floyd?"

The caretaker looked inside, and caught her breath sharply.

"Yes--yes," she answered slowly. "This has happened before, but never as bad as this. I mean it never before was quite so upset. I--I can't account for it."

"It's them pesky tramps!" said Mr. Floyd. "I'll notify the constable again; 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 the others could answer, though Walter asked:

"Well, if it were tramps, wouldn't they steal something if they had the chance they've had to-day? Let's take a look and see if anything is missing."

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 a strange fashion. They all felt it, even joking Jack.

But, aside from the misplaced tables, chairs and couch, nothing wrong was found. Nothing was missing, as far as could be ascertained, and no food had been taken from the pantry, though more than once, Mrs. Floyd said, on former occasions when the "surprise" had been manifested, the larder showed signs of an unknown visitor.

"Now before we set things to rights," suggested Jack, "suppose we see if there are any clews. Let's go at this thing right. Look at each piece of furniture 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 the floor 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. "The chairs and other things weren't misplaced in a hurry. They took their time. Why any one but a child would want to pile that chair on the table is 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 come out from the village, and break in to do this mischief, but it isn't likely. This is private land, and on several previous occasions trespassers 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 settled it.

"And the window fastenings are still on," reported Jack, who made a quick inspection.

"Here's a bit of mud near this one chair, as if it had dropped from some one's shoe," Walter said. "So the surprisers must have come in from outside."

"Where else would they come from?" Jack demanded. "Did you think they were concealed in the bungalow?"

"I don't know what to think," Walter answered slowly. "It's a queer mystery."

"I hope it won't cause you folks to leave," said Mrs. Floyd a bit anxiously. "We'd like you to stay on."

"And we will!" cried Cora. "We knew that a surprise awaited us when we came 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 of this 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. "See what it is to have confidence in a man. Now if the rest of you will act as I do, we'll soon----"

"Oh, I didn't say that at all!" cried the blushing Hazel. "I meant I would stay if the _rest_ did."

"Squelched!" murmured Jack in dejected tones. "Never mind, I'll lay this ghost yet. Now let's get things to rights, and then we'll stay to supper with 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."

"Another manly protector needed," murmured Paul.

"Let us stay and we'll help find the ghost," suggested Walter, and the girls were glad enough to agree, for, truth to tell, they were a bit upset, and even Cora looked over her shoulder nervously as she ascended the stairs.

"Well, they didn't come up and disturb your bedrooms this time," said Mrs. 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 of late."

"Oh, dear!" sighed the slim girl. "I did hope we would be safe from them up here."

"Oh, they never come--that is, things never happen--when any one is in the house," Mrs. Floyd hastened to add. "It's always when the place is left to itself."

"Then the--er--well, call it ghost, for want of a better name," said Jack--"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 do hope you will find out what does it and stop it."

"We will," Jack declared. "I'm sure, after all, we'll find out that it is due to perfectly natural causes."

"That's what I believe," said Walter. "I wonder if it could be an earthquake?"

"Earthquake?" echoed the others.

"Yes," Walter went on. "You know that queer noise which Cora, Belle and I seem to have heard to the exclusion of you others? Well, that was a sort of rumbling of the earth. It might have been a slight shock, a reaction from a distant quake. Such things have been known to happen. And if there was one there might well be another. If the bungalow shook hard 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 enough shock to knock over chairs and tables, the dishes in the closets would have 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't believe in the supernatural. This was done by human hands and, sooner or later, we'll discover by whom. Humans are fallible and will make a mistake. We must watch for that mistake."

They righted the furniture and talking of the matter seemed to make it lose some of its mysteriousness. The boys stayed to supper and until late in the evening. Jack offered to remain all night, and sleep on the couch downstairs, but Cora would not hear of it.

"We'll be all right," she declared. "We can call you on the telephone if we want you. Besides, Mr. Floyd is going to leave open the door leading to 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 hesitation waltz in the middle of the night," suggested Walter.

The girls went upstairs together, casting quick, nervous glances over their shoulders as they ascended. They locked their hall doors as soon as they were inside. But as the four chambers communicated, it was as if they were in one large apartment.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed Cora, as she was taking down her hair. "I've forgotten it."

"What?" asked Bess, who was taking off her shoes.

"My flashlight," Cora answered. "I left it on the table in the living room. I meant to bring it up, for I like to see what time it is if I awaken 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 a little.

Contrary, at least to some expectations, the night passed peacefully. There was no disturbance, and the girls awoke refreshed and with only a little feeling of uneasiness as to what might happen in the future.

But when Cora went downstairs, and began looking among the things on the table in the living room, another manifestation of the queer happenings was 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. or Mrs. Floyd removed it, and Cora was positive she had left it on the table. 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.