‘You’re a kind soul, Joanna,’ said George’s mother. ‘I’m so thankful we left Timmy there. I feel happier about the master now.’ ‘What shall we do this afternoon?’ said Dick, when they had finished munching the delicious ginger biscuits. ‘I say, aren’t these good? You know, I do think good cooks deserve some kind of decoration, just as much as good soldiers or scientists, or writers. I should give Joanna the O.B.C.B.E.’ ‘Whatever’s that?’ said Julian.
‘Order of the Best Cooks of the British Empire,’ said Dick grinning. ‘What did you think it was? “Oh, Be Careful Before Eating”?’ ‘You really are an absolute donkey,’ said Julian. ‘Now, what shall we do this afternoon?’ ‘Go and explore the passage in the quarry,’ said George.
Julian cocked an eye at the window. ‘It’s about to pour with rain,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that clambering up and down the steep sides of that quarry in the wet would he very easy. No we’ll leave that till a fine day.’ ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said Anne, suddenly. ‘Do you remember that old map of Kirrin Castle we once found in a box? It had plans of the castle in it – a plan of the dungeons, and of the ground floor, and of the top part. Well, let’s have it out and study it? Now we know there is another hiding-place somewhere, we might be able to trace it on that old map. It’s sure to be on it somewhere – but perhaps we didn’t notice it before!’ The others looked at her, thrilled. ‘Now that really is a brilliant idea of yours, Anne,’ said Julian, and Anne glowed with pleasure at his praise. ‘A very fine idea indeed. Just the thing for a wet afternoon. Where’s the map? I suppose you’ve got it somewhere safe, George?’ ‘Oh yes,’ said George. ‘It’s still in that old wooden box, inside the tin lining. I’ll get it.’ She disappeared upstairs and came down again with the map. It was made of thick parchment, and was yellow with age. She laid it out on the table. The others bent over it, eager to look at it once more.
‘Do you remember how frightfully excited we were when we first found the box?’ said Dick.
‘Yes, and we couldn’t open it, so we threw it out of the top window down to the ground below, hoping it would burst open!’ said George.
‘And the crash woke up Uncle Quentin,’ said Anne, with a giggle. ‘And he came out and got the box and wouldn’t let us have it!’ ‘Oh dear yes and poor Julian had to wait till Uncle Quentin was asleep, and creep in and get the box to see what was in it!’ finished Dick. ‘And we found this map and how we pored over it!’ They all pored over it again. It was in three parts, as Anne had said – a plan of the dungeons, a plan of the ground floor and a plan of the top part.
‘It’s no good bothering about the top part of the castle,’ said Dick. ‘It’s all fallen down and ruined. There’s practically none of it left, except for that one tower.’ ‘I say!’ said Julian, suddenly putting his finger on a certain spot in the map, ‘do you remember there were two entrances to the dungeons? One that seemed to start somewhere about that little stone room and the other that started where we did at last find the entrance? Well we never found the other entrance, did we?’ ‘No! We didn’t!’ said George, in excitement. She pushed Julian’s finger away from the map. ‘Look — there are steps shown here somewhere where that little room is – so there must be an entrance there! Here’s the other flight of steps – the ones we did find, near the well.’ ‘I remember that we hunted pretty hard for the entrance in the little room,’ said Dick. ‘We scraped away the weeds from every single stone, and gave it up at last. Then we found the other entrance, and forgot all about this one.’ ‘And I think Father has found the entrance we didn’t find!’ said George, triumphantly. ‘It leads underground, obviously. Whether or not it joins up with the dungeons we know I can’t make out from this map. It’s a bit blurred here. But it’s quite plain that there is an entrance here, with Stone steps leading underground somewhere! See, there’s some sort of passage or tunnel marked, leading from the steps. Goodness knows where it goes, it’s so smeared.’ ‘It joins up with the dungeons, I expect,’ said Julian. ‘We never explored the whole of them; you know — they’re so vast and weird. If we explored the whole place, we should probably come across the stone steps leading from somewhere near that little room. Still, they may be ruined or fallen in now.’ ‘No, they can’t be,’ said George. ‘I’m perfectly sure that’s the entrance Father has found. And I’ll tell you something that seems to prove it, too.’ ‘What?’ said everyone.
‘Well, do you remember the other day when we first went to see Father?’ said George. ‘He didn’t let us stay long, and he came to see us off at the boat. Well, we tried to see where he went, but we couldn’t — but Dick said he saw the jackdaws rising up in a flock, as if they had been suddenly disturbed — and he wondered if Father had gone somewhere in that direction.’ Julian whistled. ‘Yes — the jackdaws build in the tower, which is by the little room – and anyone going into the room would disturb them. I believe you’re right, George.’ ‘It’s been puzzling me awfully where Uncle Quentin could be doing his work,’ said Dick. ‘I simply could not solve the mystery – but now I think we have!’ ‘I wonder how Father found his hiding-place,’ said George, thoughtfully. ‘I still think it was mean of him not to tell me.’ ‘There must have been some reason,’ said Dick, sensibly. ‘Don’t start brooding again!’ ‘I’m not,’ said George. ‘I’m puzzled, that’s all. I wish we could take the boat and go over to the island at once, and explore!’ ‘Yes. I bet we’d find the entrance all right now,’ said ‘Dick. ‘Your father is sure to have left some trace of where it is – a stone a bit cleaner than the rest -or weeds scraped off or something.’ ‘Do you suppose the unknown enemy on the island knows Uncle Quentin’s hiding-place?’ said Anne, suddenly. ‘Oh, I do hope he doesn’t! He could so easily shut him in if he did.’ ‘Well, he hasn’t gone there to shut Uncle up — he’s gone there to steal his secret, or find it out,’ said Julian. ‘Golly, I’m thankful he’s got Timmy. Timmy could tackle a dozen enemies.’ ‘Not if they had guns,’ said George, in a small voice. There was a silence. It was not a nice thought to think of Timmy at the wrong end of a gun. This had happened once or twice before in their adventures, and they didn’t want to think of it happening again.
‘Well, it’s no good thinking silly things like that,’ said Dick, getting up. ‘We’ve had a jolly interesting half-hour. I think we’ve solved that mystery. But I suppose we shan’t know for certain till your father’s finished his experiment, George, and left the island – then we can go over and have a good snoop round.’ ‘It’s still raining,’ said Anne, looking out of the window. ‘But it’s a bit clearer. It looks as if the sun will he out soon. Let’s go for a walk.’ ‘I shall go up to the coastguard’s cottage,’ said George, at once. ‘I want to look through his telescope to see if I can just get a glimpse of Timmy.’ ‘Try the field-glasses,’ suggested Julian. ‘Go up to the top of the house with them.’ ‘Yes, I will,’ said George. ‘Thanks for the idea.’ She fetched the field-glasses, where they hung in the hall, and took them out of their leather case. She ran upstairs with them. But she soon came down again, looking disappointed.
‘The house isn’t high enough for me to see much of the island properly. I can see the glass top of the tower easily, of course — but the telescope would show it much better. It’s more powerful. I think I’ll go up and have a squint. You don’t need to come if you don’t want to.’ She put the glasses back into their case.
‘Oh, we’ll all come and have a squint for old Timmy-dog,’ said Dick, getting up. ‘And I don’t mind telling you what we’ll see!’ ‘What?’ said George, in surprise.
‘We’ll see Timmy having a perfectly wonderful time, chasing every single rabbit on the island!’ said Dick with a grin. ‘My word – you needn’t worry about Timmy not having his food regularly! He’ll have rabbit for breakfast, rabbit for dinner, rabbit for tea and rain-water from his favourite pool. Not a bad life for old Timmy !’ ‘You know perfectly well he’ll do nothing of the sort,’ said George. ‘He’ll keep close to Father and not think of rabbits once!’ ‘You don’t know Timmy if you think that,’ said Dick, dodging out of George’s way. She was turning red with exasperation. ‘I bet that’s why he wanted to stay. Just for the rabbits!’ George threw a book at him. It crashed to the floor. Anne giggled. ‘Oh stop it, you two. We’ll never get out. Come on, Ju – we won’t wait for the squabblers!’