By this time Billie was on the top rung of the ladder and her fingers trembled as she tried to fit the first of the keys into the lock. She had more courage than Vi, yet almost she echoed the other girl’s wish—that she would not be able to find a key to fit. She wanted to see what was on the other side of that locked door, yet for some reason—perhaps the blood-stained handkerchief—she was afraid to find out. She had tried every key till she came to the next to the last, while Laura and Vi fidgeted at the foot of the ladder. “Won’t they fit?” asked Laura, impatiently and in a high-strung tone. “Yes,” said Billie unexpectedly, as the key slipped into the lock and turned easily under the pressure of her fingers. She hesitated and looked down at the two girls before swinging the door wide. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked, and she could not, for the life of her, keep a little scared quality out of her voice. “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.”