Then Jack gave a shout. He had found an old broken ladder lying on the ground and had set it up beside the wall of the round tower. It just reached to a small window.

“I believe that window could be opened,” said Jack. “Come and hold the ladder, Mike. The rungs don’t look too good to me.”

Mike held the ladder and Jack went carefully up it.

One of the rungs broke as he trod on it and he nearly fell. The ladder wobbled dangerously, but Mike was holding it tightly, so Jack was quite all right.

He climbed up to the window-sill and tried to pull the window open. “The catch is broken!” he said. “I believe I can get the window open if I try long enough. It’s stuck hard.”

“I’ll hold the ladder tight,” Mike shouted back. “Shake the window and bang the bottom part, Jack. Nora, help me to hold the ladder. Jack’s shaking the window so hard that the ladder is swinging about! I don’t want him sitting on my head suddenly!”

There was a shout from above and the ladder wobbled again. “I’ve got it open!” cried Jack. “It came up with a rush!”

“We’ll climb up the ladder then,” said Nora, in excitement.

“No,” said Jack, leaning out of the window. He had climbed in through it. “That ladder’s too dangerous for you girls to use. I’ll pop down and unlock the door in the tower, just near you.”

“Right.” said Mike, and he took the ladder away and threw it down on the ground again. Jack disappeared. They could hear him running down the stairs of the tower. Then they heard him undoing bolts, and turning a rusty key. He pulled at the door and Mike pushed. It opened so suddenly that Jack sat down in the dust, and Mike flew in through the door as if he were running a race!

The girls followed, laughing at the two boys. Jack got up and dusted himself. “Let’s go up the tower first,” he said. “Look at the walls! They seem about four feet thick! My word, they knew how to build in the old days!”

The tower was very solid indeed. It had a small winding staircase that ran round and round as it went upwards. There were four rooms in the tower, one on top of the other.

“They are all quite round,“ said Jack. “Just as ours are in the Peep-Hole tower. I say! What a magnificent view you get over the sea from this top room!”

The children stood in silence and looked out of the window over the sea. It shimmered there for miles in the sun, purple blue, with tiny white flecks where the water washed over hidden rocks.

“You can see the tower of Peep-Hole very well from here,” said Mike. “The two towers must have been built in these special positions so that the smugglers could signal to each other. If one of us were in our tower to-day we could easily wave a hanky to the others here, and it would be seen perfectly.”

“Mike! Jack! I can hear something!” said Nora suddenly. She had very sharp ears.

The others looked startled. “Whatever do you mean, Nora?” said Jack. “I can hear things too - the birds singing, and the far-away sound of the sea!”

“I don’t mean those,” said Nora. “I am sure I heard voices.”

“Voices! In an old empty house that hasn’t been lived in for years!” said Jack, laughing.

“I tell you I did,” said Nora. She suddenly pointed out through one of the tower windows. “Just look down there!” she said. “You can see the front gate from here - look at it!”

The others looked, and their eyes opened wide in surprise.

“The front gate is open!” said Mike. “And it was fast locked when we climbed over it! Nora is right. She must have heard somebody.”

“Perhaps it is somebody come to look over the house to buy it,” said Nora. “Oh dear - we oughtn’t to be here, I’m sure. And I wish we hadn’t eaten those plums now. Let’s go quickly.”

The others could hear the voices very clearly now too. Jack looked alarmed. “I believe they’re in the tower already,” he said. “They must have come into the house by the front door and gone round to the tower.”

“They are coming up the stairway!” whispered Peggy, her hand half over her mouth. “Sh! Don’t talk any more. Maybe they won’t come right up to the top.”

The voices came clearly up the stairway. One was a man’s and one was a woman’s.

“This tower is the very place.” said the man’s deep voice, which did not sound quite English.

“Nobody would ever guess,” said the woman’s voice, and she laughed. It was not a kind laugh. The strangers went into the room below the top one and the woman exclaimed at the view.

“Isn’t it marvellous! And so lonely too. Not a house within miles except that little one down there - it’s called the Peep-Hole, isn’t it? And the old farmhouse four miles off. It’s just right for us, Felipe.”

“Yes,” said the man. “Come along - we’ve seen all we need.”

The children breathed a sigh of relief. So the people weren’t coming up to their room after all.

“Well, I’d very much like to see the view from the topmost room of all,” said the woman. “Also, that’s the room we’d use, isn’t it?”

“Very well. Come along, then,” said the man. “But hurry, please, because we haven’t long.”

The footsteps came up and up. The children didn’t know what to do, so they simply stood together and waited for the small but strong door to be opened. It swung inwards, and they saw a golden-haired woman looking at them, and a man with a very dark skin behind her.

“Well!” said the woman in astonishment and anger. “What are you doing here?”

“We just came to have a look at the garden and the tower of the Old House,” said Jack. “We are staying at the Peep-Hole.”

The man came into the room and scowled at them. “You’ve no right to get into empty houses. We are going to buy this house - and if we catch any of you in the house or garden again we’ll give you a good whipping. Do you understand - because we mean it! Now clear out!”

The children were frightened. They tore down the winding staircase and out into the sunlight without a word. They had seldom been spoken to like that before.

“Let’s go and tell Dimmy,” said Nora. “Do hurry!”

The four children rushed out of the front gate and didn’t stop till they got to the Peep-Hole. How nice and friendly it seemed, and how kind Dimmy looked as she stood picking peas for supper in the garden!

“Dimmy!” cried Nora, rushing up to her. “Some people are going to buy the Old House.”

Dimmy looked astonished. “Whatever for?” she asked. “It’s no use except for a school or for a hotel or something like that - it’s so lonely for an ordinary family.”

“Dimmy, they are queer people,” said Jack, and he told what had happened. “Do you suppose they really would punish us if we go there again?”

“Quite likely,” said Dimmy, going indoors with the peas. “If they are buying the house it will be theirs. So keep away from it. Surely you’ve got plenty to do without going wandering over that old place! “

“Well, you see, it’s a mysterious sort of place, somehow,” said Jack. “It looks as if anything might happen there. I keep looking at it and wondering about it.”

“So do I,” said Nora. “I don’t like the old house - but I can’t help thinking about it.”

“Rubbish!” said Miss Dimity. “No doubt these people will move in and make it a holiday place, and it will be just as ordinary as Peep-Hole.”

“Let’s go and bathe,” said Mike suddenly. “Don’t let’s think about it any more. They were horrid people, and we’ll forget them.”

They fetched their towels in silence. They had all had a shock, for never had they thought that anyone could speak to them so fiercely, or threaten them so unkindly. However, when they were splashing in the warm water they forgot the strange old house and the queer couple that were going to buy it, and shouted gaily to one another.

But they had another shock when they went in to their tea that afternoon. They saw a car outside the door, and inside it was sitting the same yellow-haired woman they had seen in the old house! She looked at them without smiling.