“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.”