“Gracious! What a queer place!” said George. “My goodness, what a view we’ve got from here. We can see miles and miles out to sea — and on this other side we can see miles and miles across the bay, over the mainland to the hills beyond.”

“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 signalling 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 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.”