Jon stood by the table just looking at the big black box and fiddling with the key. He was suddenly feeling much older than his years as he remembered his mother's brave smile and the way in which she had said, with a joke, that if they found any treasure it would be a great help to her. He supposed that he had not given much thought really to what she was doing to keep him at school, and although he and Penny treated the Gay Dolphin as just an amusing adventure, it could not be much fun really for his mother to have to give up their home and come down here to a strange place without any friends and start to run an hotel. Mother had told him that it would never have happened if Dad had come safely home from Normandy, but he had not returned and they had a medal instead.

Jon polished his glasses violently and then looked round for his cousin. She was kneeling on the floor by the window tracing something on the pane with her finger. As he watched, the sun must have come out between the scudding rain clouds, for her red curls suddenly glowed in the stronger light. He straightened his shoulders. "There's only the three of us," he thought. "Just Mother and Penny and me. And Penny is only a kid really. She wouldn't understand what I'm thinking."

As he looked over to her again, wondering how to break the silence, she spoke first; spoke quietly and without looking round.

"Jon," she said, "why do you think Auntie said that about the treasure? You know - that bit just as she was going out, about it being a help to her if we did find it... She didn't sound very happy, did she? She's lonely, Jon, that's what it is. It's easy for us to have fun, but she hasn't got your father any more." She gulped. "We're all she's got to help her really, and we're not here all the time, although I wouldn't mind staying away from school next term... And she thought of this super place for us, and although she half-pretended that all this about the treasure was really a joke, I believe that she'd be jolly pleased if we could find it."

Jon nodded soberly from the table on which he was now sitting.

"Yes, Penny. I think she would, too. I think she's more worried than she tells us."

"Well, we've got to help, then. There's only us, Jon. Let's swear to find this treasure."

"But we don't know that there is any treasure," he said cautiously at last. "It would be awful to let everybody think we were going to find it and then flop!"

Penny flamed at him. "Tell everybody! Of course we shan't breathe a word to anybody, you idiot. Not even to Auntie, until we've found it. Least of all to her!"