"Nonsense, my dear! Nonsense! I'd like you all to come and, as it is nearly three o'clock, perhaps we had better start now, if Mr. Grandon is not inconvenienced... We will be in the hall in ten minutes, Mr. Grandon, if you will have the car ready."

And Mr. Grandon took these orders as a matter of course and, after making his usual little low bow, walked quickly out of the restaurant, leaving Miss Ballinger to pay the bill.

Penny had to squeeze into the back seat between the twins as Miss Ballinger chose to sit in the front.

"Is it all right, Penny?" Mary whispered. "Ought we to go?"

"Just follow my lead," Penny said under her breath, "and we'll beat them yet. I think they've found out something else and I want to know what it is."

Just before they turned away from the sea up through the old fishing town, they noticed a throng of people on the shingle round a big shed, and Mary, who could never resist a crowd, begged Mr. Grandon to stop for a minute.

"Be quick then," Miss Ballinger agreed, "and if it's somebody drowned come back at once."

Penny jumped out also, and as they scrambled over the shingle with heads down against the wind, Dickie took one arm and Mary the other.

"I only said that so that we could plot together if we had to," the latter said. "Although I do want to know what these people are looking at."

A specially fierce gust flung some stinging sand in their faces and Dickie had to yell to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the crash of the waves on the shingle.

"Why does she want us to go to tea?" he shouted. "I thought she hated us. I b'lieve she still does really."

Mary pulled down Penny's head to her mouth.

"I'm sure she does, too. I don't like the way she looks at us even when she's smiling."

This was a very shrewd remark and Penny had seen this look more than once at lunch time.

"When we get to a phone box we'll ring up the Dolphin and I'll tell Jon where we are and where we're going, but don't you worry, twins - Dickie will get a good tea, anyway, and I'll take care of you. I'm not afraid of her!"

By now they had reached the edge of the crowd and saw that the big double doors in front of the shed were open and that some men in oilskins were busy round an enormous lifeboat. In a flash the twins had worked their way through to the front rank of spectators, and during a lull in the wind Penny, still at the back, heard their shrill treble as they demanded information. A big fisherman in a blue jersey smiled at them.