For a moment she was dumbfounded. Then - "I don't know what you mean," she gasped, and ran down the crooked corridor. As soon as she had turned the first corner she leaned against the wall and wondered once again where she was. This house really was absurd! Then she heard a muffled, unmusical humming which she recognized as Jon's, so she padded on down the corridor still wearing the one shoe, and when she turned another corner it was to see her cousin's untidy head peering round an open door.

"So there you are," he said. "Have you gone mad or something? Or been walking in your sleep? Do you have to walk round in only one shoe?"

She pushed him into the room and shut the door. She closed it carefully and quietly, instead of slamming it as usual, and then stood with her back to it and looked round.

"I say, Jon, I'm sorry about that clod, but you did look funny. It was a good shot really! You know I'm not much good at throwing, but I got it in first time."

But Jon did not laugh. He just looked cross and went over to the basin and squeezed out some paste on to his toothbrush. Penny tried again. It was not quite as easy to tell him as she had expected.

"Come on, Penny! If you've really got something to tell me, do buck up and get on with it."

She poured out her story, while he listened impatiently. Once or twice he tried to interrupt, but she brushed him aside.

"Let me finish, Jon. We've got to stick together on this and that's why I wanted to tell you all about it before we met at breakfast... Well, there I was standing on the stairs... absolutely transfixed with terror, Jon... and listening to him telling somebody that we'd arrived..."

"What do you mean? We had arrived..."

"I'm telling you, aren't I? Give me a chance..." and she made the best of her opportunity to keep him listening.

"... and it's all very mysterious and horrid, Jon," she finished. "You remember that your mother told us last night that she didn't really like him and now we know for certain that he's something to do with that funny old Miss Ballinger..."

"We don't really know that, Penny. We can't be sure."

"Of course we know. Didn't he come to meet her at the station and didn't she try to get rid of us in the railway carriage so that we shouldn't see him meeting her?"

Jon nodded.

"If you're right, I suppose that would be because after we'd told her that we belonged to the Dolphin she realized that we should soon know him... But why, Penny? It doesn't make sense."

"Oh, I don't know why! That's what we've got to find out, isn't it? That's going to be our big job. Why, Jon, our adventure started before we got here."