‘Some kind of new plastic material, I should think,’ said Julian. ‘Very light and strong, and easily put together.’ ‘I should be afraid it would blow down in a gale,’ said George.
‘Yes, so should I,’ said Dick. ‘Look — here is the door.’ The door was small, and rounded at the top. A key was in the keyhole. Julian turned it and unlocked the door. It opened outwards not inwards. Julian put his head inside and looked round.
There was not much room in the tower. A spiral staircase, made of the same shiny stuff as the tower itself, wound up and up and up. There was a space at one side of it, into which projected curious hook-like objects made of what looked like steel. Wire ran from one to the other.
‘Yes. It’s lovely,’ said Anne. ‘But – where is Uncle Quentin? We still haven’t found him. I suppose he is on the island.’ ‘Well, his boat was pulled up in the cove,’ said George. ‘We saw it.’ ‘Then he must be here somewhere,’.said Dick. ‘But he’s not in the castle, he’s not in the dungeons, he’s not in the cave and he’s not up here. It’s a first-class mystery.’ ‘The Missing Uncle. Where is he?’ said Julian. ‘Look, there’s poor Aunt Fanny still down there, waiting with the lunch. We’d better go down. She’s signaling to us.’ ‘I should like to,’ said Anne. ‘It’s an awful squash in this tiny glass room. I say – did you feel the tower sway then, when that gust of wind shook it? I’m going down quickly, before the whole thing blows over!’ She began to go down the spiral stairs, holding on to a little hand-rail that ran down beside them. The stairs were so steep that she was afraid of falling. She nearly did fall when Timmy pushed his way past her, and disappeared below her at a remarkably fast pace.
Soon they were all down at the bottom. Julian locked the door again. ‘Not much good locking a door if you leave the key in,’ he said. ‘Still – I’d better.’ They walked over to Aunt Fanny. ‘Well, I thought you were never coming!’ she said. ‘Did you see anything interesting up there?’ ‘Only a lovely view,’ said Anne. ‘Simply magnificent. But we didn’t find Uncle Quentin. It’s very mysterious, Aunt Fanny – we really have looked everywhere on the island – but he’s just not here.’ ‘And yet his boat is in the cove,’ said Dick. ‘So he can’t have gone.
‘Yes, it does sound queer,’ said Aunt Fanny, handing round the sandwiches. ‘But you don’t know your uncle as well as I do. He always turns up all right. He’s forgotten I was bringing you, or he would be here. As it is, we may not see him, if he’s quite forgotten about your coming. If he remembers, he’ll suddenly turn up.’ ‘But where from?’ asked Dick, munching a potted meat sandwich. ‘He’s done a jolly good disappearing trick, Aunt Fanny.’ ‘Well, you’ll see where he comes from, I’ve no doubt, when he arrives,’ said Aunt Fanny. ‘Another sandwich, George? No, not you, Timmy. You’ve had three already. Oh George, do keep Timmy’s head out of that plate.’ ‘He’s hungry too, Mother,’ said George.
‘Well, I’ve brought dog-biscuits for him,’ said her mother.
‘Oh, Mother! As if Timmy would eat dog biscuits when he can have sandwiches,’ said George. ‘He only eats dog biscuits when there’s absolutely nothing else and he’s so ravenous he can’t help eating them.’ They sat in the warm April sunshine, eating hungrily.
There was orangeade to drink, cool and delicious. Timmy wandered over to a rock-pool he knew, where rain-water collected, and could be heard lapping there.
‘Hasn’t he got a good memory?’ said George proudly.
‘It’s ages since he was here – and yet he remembered that pool at once, when he felt thirsty.’ ‘It’s funny Timmy hasn’t found Uncle Quentin, isn’t it?’ said Dick, suddenly. ‘I mean — when we were hunting for him, and got “Warm” you’d think Timmy would bark or scrape about or something. But he didn’t.’ ‘I think it’s jolly funny that Father can’t be found anywhere,’ said George. ‘I do really. I can’t think how you can take it so calmly, Mother.’ ‘Well, dear, as I said before, I know your father better than you do,’ said her mother. ‘He’ll turn up in his own good time. Why, I remember once when he was doing some sort of work in the stalactite caves at Cheddar, he disappeared in them for over a week – but he wandered out all right when he had finished his experiments.’ ‘It’s very queer,’ began Anne, and then stopped suddenly. A curious noise came to their ears – a rumbling, grumbling, angry noise, like a giant. hidden dog, growling in fury. Then there was a hissing noise from the tower, and all the wires that waved at the top were suddenly lit up as if by lightning.
‘There now I knew your father was somewhere about,’ said George’s mother. ‘I heard that noise when I was here before — but I couldn’t make out where it came from.’ ‘Where did it come from?’ said Dick. ‘It sounded al most as if it was underneath us, but it couldn’t have been. Gracious, this is most mysterious.’ No more noises came. They each helped themselves to buns with jam in the middle. And then Anne gave a squeal that made them all jump violently.
‘Look! There’s Uncle Quentin! Standing over there, near the tower. He’s watching the jackdaws! Wherever did he come from?’
Chapter Five
A MYSTERY
EVERYONE stared at Uncle Quentin. There he was, intently watching the jackdaws, his hands in his trousers pockets. He hadn’t seen the children or his wife.
Timmy leapt to his feet, and gamboled over to George’s father. He barked loudly. Uncle Quentin jumped and turned round. He saw Timmy – and then he saw all the others, staring at him in real astonishment.
Uncle Quentin did not look particularly pleased to see anyone. He walked slowly over to them, a slight frown on his face. ‘This is a surprise,’ he said. ‘I had no idea you were all coming today.’ ‘Oh Quentin!’ said his wife, reproachfully. ‘I wrote it down for you in your diary. You know I did.’ ‘Did you? Well, I haven’t looked at my diary since, so it’s no wonder I forgot,’ said Uncle Quentin, a little peevishly. He kissed his wife, George and Anne, and shook hands with the boys.
‘Uncle Quentin – where did you come from?’ asked Dick, who was eaten up with curiosity. ‘We’ve looked for you for ages.’ ‘Oh, I was in my workroom,’ said Uncle Quentin, vaguely.
‘Well, but where’s that?’ demanded Dick. ‘Honestly, Uncle, we can’t imagine where you hide yourself. We even went up the tower to see if you were in that funny glass room at the top.’ ‘What!’ exploded his uncle, in a sudden surprising fury. ‘You dared to go up there? You might have been in great danger. I’ve just finished an experiment, and all those wires in there were connected with it.’ ‘Yes, we saw them acting a bit queerly,’ said Julian.
‘You’ve no business to come over here, and interfere with my work,’ said his uncle, still looking furious. ‘How did you get into that tower? I locked it.’ ‘Yes, it was locked all right,’ said Julian. ‘But you left the key in, you see, Uncle – so I thought it wouldn’t matter if…’ ‘Oh, that’s where the key is, is it?’ said his uncle. ‘I thought I’d lost it. Well, don’t you ever go into that tower again. I tell you, it’s dangerous.’ ‘Uncle Quentin, you haven’t told us yet where your workroom is,’ said Dick, who was quite determined to know. ‘We can’t imagine ‘where you suddenly came from.’ ‘I told them you would turn up, Quentin,’ said his wife. ‘You look a bit thin, dear. Have you been having regular meals. You know, I left you plenty of good soup to heat up.’ ‘Did you?’ said her husband. ‘Well, I don’t know if I’ve had it or not. I don’t worry about meals when I’m working. I’ll have some of those sandwiches now, though, if nobody else wants them.’ He began to devour the sandwiches, one after another as if he was ravenous. Aunt Fanny watched him in distress.
‘Oh Quentin – you’re starving. I shall’ come over here and stay and look after you!’ Her husband looked alarmed. ‘Oh no! Nobody is to come here. I can’t have my work interfered with. I’m working on an extremely important discovery.’ ‘Is it a discovery that nobody else knows about?’ asked Anne, her eyes wide with admiration. How clever Uncle Quentin was! ‘Well – I’m not sure about that,’ said Uncle Quentin, taking two sandwiches at once. ‘That’s partly why I came over here – besides the fact that I wanted water round me and above me. I have a feeling that somebody knows a bit more than I want them to know. But there’s one thing – they can’t come here unless they’re shown the way through all those rocks that lie round the island. Only a few of the fishermen know that, and they’ve been given orders not to bring anyone here at all. I think you’re the only other person that knows the way, George.