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Chapter Twelve THE OLD MAP AGAIN

IT  was  only  about  half  past  one  when  they  arrived  back,  because  they  had  had  lunch  so  very early, and had not stayed long on the island. Joanna was most surprised to see them.

'Well,  here  you  are  again!'  she  said.  'I  hope  you  don't  all  want  another  lunch,  because  there's nothing in the house till I go to the butcher's!'

'Oh  no,  Joanna  -  we've  had  our  picnic  lunch,'  said  her  mistress,  'and  it  was  a  good  thing  we packed so much, because the master ate quite half of the lunch! He still hasn't had that nice soup we made for him. Now it will be bad, of course.'

'Oh, the men! They're as bad as children!' said Joanna.

'Well!'  said  George.  'Do  you  really  think  any  of  us  would  let  your  good  soup  go  bad,  Joanna?

You know jolly well we'd probably eat it up before we ought to!'

'That's true I wouldn't accuse any of you four or Timmy either of playing about with your food,'

said Joanna. 'You make good work of it, the lot of you. But where is Timmy?'

'I left him behind to look after Father,' said George.

Joanna stared at her in surprise. She knew how passionately¹ fond of Timmy George was.

'You're  a  very  good  girl  -  sometimes!'  she  said.  'See  now  -  if  you're  still  hungry  because  your father has eaten most of your lunch, you go and look in the biscuit tin; I made you some of your favourite ginger² biscuits this morning. You go and find them.'

That was always Joanna's way! If she thought anyone was upset, she offered them, her best and freshest food. George went off to find the biscuits.

'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 50

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 quarry³,' 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  be 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  dungeons⁴,  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 lining⁵. 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 bent⁶ 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 giggle⁷. '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!'

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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 blurred⁸ 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 smeared⁹.'

'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 perfectly¹⁰ 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.'

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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 be 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.

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'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 exasperation¹¹.

'I bet that's why he wanted to stay. Just for the rabbits,' said Dick.

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!'