"Well, Penny, you can't be sure that he was talking to that rum old Miss Ballinger on the telephone, can you?"

"No, I can't be sure, but I'd bet anything that it was her... Those papers he mentioned, Jon! He said he'd find them and meet her at the old mill tomorrow... It's just like a story! Anyway, I hate that Grandon man. He made me lose my shoe coming up all quiet and slinky like that and I think he's vile."

"I'm looking forward to seeing him close. I couldn't really see him at the station. Just a black hat. You have all the fun, Penny... Oh, gosh! That sounds like a gong and I suppose we'd better go down to breakfast."

"What are we going to do?" Penny asked.

"We'll talk about it again after breakfast. Meanwhile, don't say anything to Mother, because I'm going to tell her that I'd like to meet this mysterious Mr. Grandon, and maybe we've got all the wrong ideas."

Penny snorted. "Not on your life! Do you think I dreamed it all last night?"

Jon turned round. "I never thought of that," he said. "I'm always telling you that you eat too fast and you excelled yourself at supper! Where have you left the other shoe? Are you going up to put on another pair?"

"No, I'm not. I'm sick of those stairs. The other is down in the lounge somewhere. We'll go down that way and cross over the yard. Come on."

"We'll have to get used to going the other way to our rooms by Monday," Jon said as he shut the door behind him. "Don't fly into a rage, but you look a bit of an ass wearing one shoe!"

Downstairs, in the lounge, Fred Vasson was now polishing the brass. After Jon had answered his "Good morning," Penny said:

"You don't happen to have seen a shoe about, do you, Mr. Vasson? It happened to fall downstairs just now and at the time I didn't bother to come back for it... I was in rather a hurry," she finished lamely as she saw Fred's expression of astonishment,

"A shoe?" he muttered.

"Yes, like this. Only the other side of course," and she extended the shod foot for inspection.

Fred slowly shook his head.

"No, miss," he said solemnly. "No, miss. I haven't seen a shoe and I've been all over the floor, as you well know, miss. Was it after your walk it fell off, did you say?"

Jon grinned and Penny flushed and peered vaguely about under one or two chairs. Then the door opened and Mrs. Warrender came in, followed by Mr. Grandon, who was carrying Penny's shoe rather in the way in which the Prince's herald must have carried Cinderella's glass slipper.