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
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