They took Timmy by the collar, and went out through the turnstiles, click-click-click. “I feel like having a couple of doughnuts at the dairy,” said George. “And some lemonade. Anyone else feel the same?”

Everyone did, including Timmy, who barked at once.

“Timmy’s silly over those doughnuts,” said George. “He just wolfs them down.”

“It’s a great waste,” said Anne. “He ate four last time — more than anyone else had.”

They walked down to the village. “You go and order what we want,” said Julian, “and I’ll just go and look up this Society. It may have an office somewhere in this district.”

He went to the post office to use the telephone there, and the rest of them trooped in at the door of the bright little dairy. The plump shop-woman welcomed them beamingly. She considered them her best customers, and they certainly were.

They were each on their second doughnut when Julian came back. “Any news?” asked Dick.

“Yes,” said Julian. “Peculiar news, though. I found the address of the Society — they’ve got a branch about fifty miles from here, that deals with all the old buildings for a radius of a hundred miles. I asked if they had any recent booklet about the castle.”

He stopped to take a doughnut, and bit into it. The others waited patiently while he chewed.

“They said they hadn’t. The last time they had checked over Faynights Castle was two years ago.”

“But — but what about those two men who came from the Society last week, then?” said George.

“Yes. That’s what I said,” answered Julian, taking another bite. “And here’s the peculiar bit. They said they didn’t know what I was talking about, nobody had been sent there from the Society, and who was I, anyhow?”

“Hmm!” said Dick, thinking hard. “Then — those men were examining and exploring the castle for their own reasons!”

“I agree,” said Julian. “And I can’t help thinking that the face at the window and those two men have something to do with one another. It’s quite clear that the men had nothing whatever to do with any official society — they merely gave it as an excuse because they wanted to find out what kind of hiding-place the castle had.”

The others stared at him, feeling a familiar excitement rising in them — what George called the “adventure feeling”.

“Then there was a real face at that tower window, and there is a way of getting up there,” said Anne.

“Yes,” said Julian. “I know it sounds very far-fetched, but I do think there is just a possibility that those two scientists have gone there. I don’t know if you read it in the paper, but one of them, Jeffrey Pottersham, has written a book on famous ruins. He would know all about Faynights Castle, because it’s a very well-known one. If they wanted to hide somewhere till the hue and cry had died down, and then escape to another country, well…”