A Patriotic Schoolgirl Part 28

"I know she can. She's spent two years in Germany, and said it was the happiest time of her life. She can't be patriotic at heart to say that.

Do you know, Winifrede told me that a few days ago she and Jean had noticed such a queer light dancing about on the hills near the camp. It was just as if somebody was heliographing."

"What's heliographing?"

"Dona, you little stupid, you know that! Why, it's signalling by flas.h.i.+ng lights. There's a regular code. It's done with a mirror. Well, Brackenfield is right opposite the camp, and it would be quite possible for Norty to be helioing to the prisoners. They're always on the look-out for somebody to communicate with them and help them to escape.

I suppose there are hundreds of spies going about in England, and no one knows who they are. They just pa.s.s for ordinary innocent kind of people, but they ask all kinds of questions, and pick up sc.r.a.ps of information that will be useful to the enemy. How is it that most of our secrets appear in the Berlin papers? There must be treachery going on somewhere.

It's generally in very unsuspected places. One of the teachers in a school might just as well as not be a spy."

"How dreadful!" shuddered Dona.

"Well, you never know. Of course, they don't go about labelled 'In the pay of the Kaiser', but there must be a great many people--English too, all shame to them!--who are receiving money from Germany to betray their country."

CHAPTER XXII

The Magic Lantern

When Marjorie took an idea into her head it generally for the time filled the whole of her mental horizon. She had never liked Miss Norton, and she now mistrusted her. The evidence that she had to go upon was certainly very slight, but, as Marjorie argued, "Straws show how the wind blows", and anyone capable of sympathizing with Germans might also be capable of a.s.sisting them. She felt somewhat in the position of Hamlet, doubting whether she had really surprised a dark secret or not, and anxious for more circ.u.mstantial evidence before she told others of her suspicions. She strictly charged Dona not to mention meeting Miss Norton in the little hamlet of Sandside, which Dona readily promised.

She was not imaginative, and was at present far more interested in rows of cauliflowers or specimens of seaweeds than in problematical German spies.

Marjorie, with several detective stories fresh in her memory, determined to go to work craftily. She set little traps for Miss Norton. She would casually ask her questions about Germany, or about prisoners of war, to judge by her answers where her sympathies lay. The mistress, however, was evidently on her guard, and replied in terms of caution. One thing Marjorie learned which she considered might be a suspicious circ.u.mstance. Miss Norton received many letters from abroad. She had given foreign stamps to Rose Butler, who had seen her tear them off envelopes marked "Opened by the censor". The stamps were from Egypt, Malta, Switzerland, Spain, Holland, and Buenos Ayres, a strange variety of places in which to have correspondents, so thought Marjorie.

"Of course they're opened by the censor, but who knows if there isn't a secret cipher under the guise of an ordinary letter? They may have all kinds of treasonable secrets in them. Norty might get information and send it to those friends in foreign countries, and they would telegraph it in code through a neutral country to Berlin."

She ascertained through one of the prefects that Miss Norton intended to spend her holidays in the Isle of Wight. This again seemed extraordinary, for the teacher notoriously suffered greatly from the heat in summer, and yearned for a bracing climate such as that of Scotland; further, she was nervous about air raids, so that the south coast would surely be a very unsuitable spot to select for one who wished to take a restful vacation. Patricia, whose parents had been on a visit to Whitecliffe, and had taken her out on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, reported that at the hotel some foreigners--presumably Belgians--were staying, and that she had noticed Miss Norton drinking coffee with them in the lounge.

"Are you sure they were Belgians?" asked Marjorie with a.s.sumed carelessness.

"Why, the people in the hotel said so."

"What were they like?"

"Oh, fair and rather fat! One of them was a Madame Moeller. She played the piano beautifully; everybody came flocking into the lounge to listen to her."

"Moeller doesn't sound like a French name."

"Well, I said they were Belgians."

"It has rather a German smack about it. What language were they speaking to each other?"

"Something I couldn't understand. Not French, certainly."

"Was it German?"

"I don't know any German, so I can't tell. It might have been Flemish."

Marjorie several times felt tempted to confide her suspicions to Winifrede, but her courage never rose to the required point. She had an instinct that the head girl would pooh-pooh the whole matter, and either call her a ridiculous child, or be rather angry with her for harbouring such ideas about her house mistress. Winifrede liked to lead, and was never very ready to adopt other people's opinions; it was improbable that she would listen readily to the views of an Intermediate, even of one whom she was patronizing. A head girl is somewhat in the position of the lion in aesop's fables: it is unwise to offend her. Knowing Winifrede's disposition, Marjorie dared not risk a breach of the very desirable intimacy which at present existed between them. She yearned, however, for a confidante. The burden of her suspicions was heavy to bear alone, and she felt that sometimes two heads were better than one.

Except on exeat days she saw little of Dona, and discussing matters with that rather stolid little person was not a very exhilarating performance. In her dilemma she turned to Chrissie. The two had shared the secret of the Observatory window, and Chrissie, one of the most enthusiastic members of their patriotic society, would surely understand and sympathize where Winifrede might laugh or scold. Marjorie felt that she had lately rather neglected her chum. Their squabbles had caused frequent coolnesses, and each had been going her own way. She now made an opportunity to walk with Chrissie down the dingle, and confided to her the whole story of her doubts. Her chum listened very attentively.

"It looks queer!" she commented. "Yes, more than queer! I always set Miss Norton down as a pro-German. Those foreign letters ought to be investigated. I wish I could get hold of some of them. It's our duty to look after this, Marjorie. You're patriotic? Well, so am I. We may be able to render a great service to our country if we can track down a spy. We'll set all our energies to work."

"What are we going to do?" asked Marjorie, much impressed.

"Leave it to me, and I'll think out a plan of campaign. These things are a battle of brains. She's clever, and we've got to outwit her. Who were those foreigners she was talking to in the hotel, I should like to know?"

"That was just what I thought."

"For a beginning we must try to draw her out. Oh, don't ask her questions about her German sympathies, that's too clumsy! She'd see through that in a moment. Let's work the conversation round to military matters and munitions, and get the girls to tell all they've heard of news from the front, and watch whether Norty isn't just snapping it up."

"Wouldn't that be letting her get to know too much?"

"Well, one's obliged to risk something. If you're over-cautious you never get anything done."

"Yes, I suppose you're right. We'll try on Sunday evening after supper.

She always comes into the sitting-room for a chat with us then."

Chrissie seemed to have taken up the matter with the greatest keenness.

She was evidently in dead earnest about it. Marjorie was agreeably surprised, and on the strength of this mutual confidence her old affection for her chum revived. Once more they went about the school arm in arm, sat next to each other at tea, and wrote each other private little notes. St. Elgiva's smiled again, but the girls by this time were accustomed to Marjorie's very impulsive and rather erratic ways, and did not take her infatuations too seriously.

"Quarrelled with Winifrede?" enquired Patricia humorously. "I thought you were wors.h.i.+pping at her shrine at present."

"Marjorie is a pagan," laughed Rose Butler. "She bows down to many idols."

"I should call Winifrede a more desirable G.o.ddess than Chrissie," added Irene.

"Go on, tease me as much as you like!" declared Marjorie. "You're only jealous."

"Jealous! Jealous of Chrissie Lang! Great Minerva!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Irene eloquently.

It was about two days after this that Marjorie, pa.s.sing down the corridor from Dormitory No. 9, came suddenly upon Chrissie issuing out of Miss Norton's bedroom. Marjorie stopped in supreme amazement.

Mistresses' rooms were sacred at Brackenfield, unless by special invitation. Miss Norton was not disposed to intimacy, and it was not in the knowledge of St. Elgiva's that she had admitted any girl into her private sanctum.

"Did Norty send for you there?" questioned Marjorie in a whisper.

"Sh, s.h.!.+" replied Chrissie. "Come back with me into the dormitory."

She drew her friend inside her cubicle, looked round the room to see that they were alone, then patted her pocket and smiled.

"I've got them!" she triumphed.

"Got what?"

"Norty's foreign letters, or some of them at any rate."

"Chris! You never went into her room and took them?"