"This is from Mrs. Greyle," he said. "'All right and much relieved by wire from Thurso. Bring Audrey home as quick as possible.' That's good! And this--Great Scott! This is from Gilling! Listen!--'Just heard from Petherton of your rescue. Come straight and sharp Norcaster. Meet me at the "Angel." Big things afoot. Spurge most anxious see you. Important news. Gilling.' So things have been going on," he concluded, turning the second telegram over to Vickers. "I suppose we'll have to travel all night?" "Night express in an hour," replied Vickers. "We shall make Norcaster about five-thirty tomorrow morning." "Then let us wire the time of our arrival to Gilling. I'm anxious to know what has brought him up there," said Copplestone. "And we'll wire to Mrs. Greyle, too," he added, turning to Audrey. "She'll know then that you're absolutely on the way." "I wonder what we're on the way to?" remarked Vickers with a grim smile. "It strikes me that our recent alarms and excursions will have been as nothing to what awaits us at Norcaster." What did await them on a cold, dismal morning at Norcaster was Gilling, stamping up and down a windswept platform. And Gilling seized on Copplestone almost before he could alight from the train. "Come to the 'Angel' straight off!" he said. "Mrs. Greyle's there awaiting her daughter. I've work for you and Vickers at once--that chap Spurge is somewhere about the 'Angel,' too--been hanging round there since yesterday, heavy with news that he'll give to nobody but you." CHAPTER XXV THE SQUIRE Such of the folk of the "Angel" hotel--a night porter, a waiter, a chamber-maid--as were up and about that grey morning, wondered why the two old gentlemen who had arrived from London the day before should rise from their beds to hold a secret and mysterious conference with the three young ones who, with a charming if tired-looking young lady, drove up before the city clocks had struck six. But Sir Cresswell Oliver and Mr. Petherton knew that there was no time to be lost, and as soon as Audrey had been restored to and carried off by her mother to Mrs. Greyle's room, they summoned Vickers and Copplestone to a private parlour and demanded their latest news. Sir Cresswell listened eagerly, and in silence, until Copplestone described the return of the _Pike_; at that he broke his silence. "That's precisely what I feared!" he exclaimed. "Of course, if she's been hurriedly repainted and renamed, she stands a fair chance of getting away. Our instructions to the patrol boats up there are to look for a certain vessel, the _Pike_--naturally they won't look for anything else. We must get the wireless to work at once." "But there's this," said Copplestone. "They certainly fetched old Chatfield to make him hand over the gold! They won't go away without that! And he said that he'd hidden the gold somewhere near Scarhaven. Therefore, they'll have to come down this coast to get it."