"I've a supply of service revolvers at my office, down this very street," replied Vickers. "I'll go and get them. Here! Let's apportion our duties. I'll see to that. Gilling, you see about the car. Copplestone, you order some breakfast for us--sharp." "And I'll go round to the police," said Sir Cresswell. "Now, be careful to take care of yourselves--you don't know what you've got to deal with, remember." The group separated, and Copplestone went off to find the hotel people and order an immediate breakfast. And passing along a corridor on his way downstairs he encountered Mrs. Greyle, who came out of a room near by and started at sight of him. "Audrey is asleep," she whispered, pointing to the door she had just left. "Thank you for taking care of her. Of course I was afraid--but that's all over now. And now the thing is--how are things?" "Coming to a head, in my opinion," answered Copplestone. "But how or in what way, I don't know. Anyway, we know where that gold is--and they'll make an attempt on it--that's sure! So--we shall be there." "But what fools Peter Chatfield and his associates must be--from their own villainous standpoint--to have encumbered themselves with all that weight of gold!" exclaimed Mrs. Greyle. "The folly of it seems incredible when they could have taken it in some more easily portable form!" "Ah!" laughed Copplestone. "But that just shows Chatfield's extraordinary deepness and craft! He no doubt persuaded his associates that it was better to have actual bullion where they were going, and tricked them into believing that he'd actually put it aboard the _Pike_! If it hadn't been that they examined the boxes which he put on the _Pike_ and found they contained lead or bricks, the old scoundrel would have collared the real stuff for himself." "Take care that he doesn't collar it yet," said Mrs. Greyle with a laugh as she went into her own room. "Chatfield is resourceful enough for--anything. And--take care of yourselves!" That was the second admonition to be careful, and Copplestone thought of both, as, an hour later, he, Gilling, Vickers and Spurge sped along the desolate, wind-swept moorland on their way to the Reaver's Glen. It was a typically North Country autumnal morning, cold, raw, rainy; the tops of the neighbouring hills were capped with dark clouds; sea-birds called dismally across the heather; the sea, seen in glimpses through vistas of fir and pine, looked angry and threatening. "A fit morning for a do of this sort!" exclaimed Gilling suddenly. "Is it pretty bare and bleak at this tower of yours, Spurge?" "You'll be warm enough, guv'nor, where I shall put you," answered Spurge. "One as has knocked about these woods and moors as much as I've had to knows as many places to hide his nose in as a fox does! I'll put you by that tower where you'll be snug enough, and warm enough, too--and where nobody'll see you neither. And here's High Nick and out we get."